Problems building develop branch locally

Hi all

I’ve been struggling for a few days now trying to work out how to build from the develop branch.
I’ve installed all the dependencies (as far as I know) and have git pulled the firmware repo and switched to the develop branch. When I change to the main directory and try to compile using make, I get the following error.

$ make
C:/Program Files (x86)/GnuWin32/bin/make -C ../user
/usr/bin/sh: -c: line 0: syntax error near unexpected token `('
/usr/bin/sh: -c: line 0: `C:/Program Files (x86)/GnuWin32/bin/make -C ../user '
make: *** [user] Error 1

Any ideas? I’m assuming the documentation is based on using a Linux/Mac machine and I’m on Windows (in cygwin) so is there a chance I’ve gone wrong somewhere here?

It would be really nice if the documentation included something about how to work with Git for those of us that haven’t used it yet, it had me stumped for a while trying to look for the ‘main’ folder in the master branch before I realised I had to switch to develop.

I realise most developers on here are probably used to this sort of stuff but I think that given how far behind the cloud compiler seems to be a the moment, the local compile documentation could do with a bit of a scrub up, as people like myself, who aren’t software experts are being forced to compile locally to use features that have been in the works for a while now!

I’d suspect that this uncanny Program Files (x86) gives you headaches.
I’m on Windows too, but I’ve had similar problems a long time ago, and ever since either install programs that might not like this path in an extra directory, with no blanks or other funny characters or use another (more complicated) workaround creating a symbolic link (this is possible in Windows too) to that folder and replace the “funny” path with my custom path.


Since I had to reinstall the job lot several times (due to HW crash and Win10 desaster), I started to appreciate @mumblepins toolchain installer
Toolchain for Windows Installer

3 Likes

Thanks very much @ScruffR, I’ll try this as soon as I get the chance.

[solved]

For me on Mac everything compiles with the new develop branch, but when flashing the newest ones don’t work. The previous versions do work. No compilation errors given, and I’ve jumped between various commits. Earlier ones work, but new ones don’t.

For example c735044 in Develop branch seems to be like this. Compiles, but doesn’t work when flashing. The Photon goes into a weird mode of white and red light breathing.

Then for example 09dd809 in Develop branch seems to work nicely.

I’ve tested with blink example, so I don’t think the code is the issue here.

Any ideas?


I solved it. I had previously flashed with the new firmware that I downloaded, but now I just compiled the whole thing in the modules folder and this did the trick.

2 Likes

That’s right - when building from develop it’s important to also build and flash system modules when pulling from the repo to keep them in sync with what the application firmware is expecting.