FAQ

[中文]

How do I know the installed version of Java in my system?

You can check using java -version command from the terminal.

How to check the Java version used by Eclipse?

Go to Help > About Eclipse > Installation Details > Configuration.
Look for -vm argument.

How to increase the heap memory for Java while using Eclipse IDE?

Locate the eclipse.ini or espressif-ide.ini.
Increase the Xmx value under the -vmargs args section. For example, you can set to -Xmx2048m.

What are the operating systems the plugin supports?

Windows
macOS
Linux

How do I provide Eclipse environment and plugins information?

Help > About Eclipse > Installation Details > Configuration > Copy to Clipboard

How do I know the installed IDF Eclipse Plugins version?

Go to the menu Eclipse > About Eclipse > Installation Details > Installed Software.
Search for “Espressif”.

How do I uninstall IDF Eclipse Plugins from the Eclipse?

Go to Eclipse > About Eclipse > Installation Details > Installed Software.
Search for “Espressif”.
Select Espressif IDF Feature.
Click Uninstall...

Unable to install IDF plugins in Eclipse?

Please check the error log from the main menu:

Go to Window > Show View > Other.
Then select General > Error Log.

Do IDF Eclipse Plugins support CMake IDF project creation?

Yes, you can create IDF CMake project using File > New > Espressif IDF Project.

Can I import my existing IDF project into Eclipse?

Yes, you can import using Import Menu. Import... > Espressif > Existing IDF Project.

Where can I find the IDF installed tools in my system?

Default directory is $HOME/.espressif for Linux/MacOS users or %USER_PROFILE%.espressif for Windows users.

Why do deleted C/C++ build environment variables still appear?

You need to uncheck the preference recorder. This can be performed by the following:

Go to Preferences > Oomph > Setup Tasks > Preference Recorder.
Uncheck Record into.

How can I rollback to old ESP-IDF Eclipse plugin?

Open Eclipse IDE and Uninstall the ESP-IDF plugin.
Restart Eclipse IDE.
Download the previous version of the ESP Eclipse Plugin from the release page.
Go to Help > Install New Software.
Press the Add button, a window will open with the name of Add Repository.
Press the Archive button and select the file downloaded.
Proceed with the installation.
Restart Eclipse.

Where can I find the `compile_commands.json` file for the project?

You can find it at /projectName/build/compile_commands.json.

compile_commands.json contains the exact compiler calls for all translation units of the project in machine-readable. It is used by the Eclipse CDT indexer for parsing and resolving headers.

How do I access CDT Parser error log?

Please go to Project > C/C++ Index > Create Parser Log.

How do I access the error log?

From the main menu, select Window > Show View > Other. Then select General > Error Log.

How do I report a deadlock or Eclipse hang?

You can find the detailed instructions here: https://wiki.eclipse.org/How_to_report_a_deadlock.

On the command line, use jps -v to find the PIDs of Java processes and jstack <pid> to show the stack trace of Java processes.

Here 32308 and 8824 are PIDs of Java processes. 8824 is jps itself and is of no interest for us. 32308 is an Eclipse process judging from the presence of org.eclipse.equinox.launcher in its command line. The jstack command saves the stack trace of the Eclipse process in a file /tmp/jstack.txt, attach the file to the bug report.

`sun.security.validator.ValidatorException: PKIX path building failed` error

This issue is likely caused by the Java version or missing Java certificates. Please ensure that Java 11 or later is installed to resolve the error. Refer to the links below for more details:

Why is Java 11 recommended for the IDF Eclipse Plugin?

We recommend using Java 11 (the latest LTS version from Oracle) or later when working with the IDF Eclipse Plugin. This is because Eclipse 2020-06 requires Java 11 to work properly with the CDT. Here are some important pointers from Eclipse:

Installing CDT 9.11 on Eclipse 2020-06 and later requires a workaround when using Java 8.

CDT 9.11 only requires Java 8 to run. However, a new feature in Eclipse 2020-06 and later means that the Install wizard may prevent installation. The workaround is to disable “Verify provisioning operation is compatible with the currently running JRE” in Windows > Preferences > Install/Update. See https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=564407#c1.
CDT 10.0 requires Java 11 or later.

Starting with CDT 10.0, Java 11 or later is required to run CDT. This aligns with the requirements of Eclipse IDE which also requires Java 11 to run starting in 2020-09.

How to delete launch targets from the Eclipse

There is no UI option to delete launch targets directly from Eclipse, however, this can be achieved by following the below instructions:

Go to the Eclipse workspace directory. For example, in my case: /Users/myName/myTesteclipseWorkspace.
Navigate to .metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.core.runtime/.settings folder in the workspace directory.
Look for org.eclipse.launchbar.core.prefs file and open it in the editor.
Search for the launch target name you want to delete and remove all those entries from the file.
Save the file.
Restart Eclipse.

How do I access project build log?

To enable logging, navigate to Preferences > Project > C/C++ > Build > Logging.
Check Enable global build logging.
Build the project.
Export global-build.log. This is the same build console log which appears in the CDT build console, but the build console usually has a limited buffer size, hence it won’t display everything.

How do I enable verbose debug output to my project build?

IDF Eclipse plugin uses CMake commands to build the project, so it’s possible to pass CMake arguments from the build configuration wizard. To configure this:

Click on the editor configuration wizard.
Navigate to Build Settings tab.
Add --debug-output or other.

How do I build multiple configurations in Espressif-IDE?

Create a new project.
Open the Launch Configuration dialog.
Navigate to the Build Settings tab and enter -B build_release in the Additional CMake Arguments section. Here, build_release is the name of the build folder.
Click the OK button to save the configuration.
Reopen the Launch Configuration dialog.
Click the Duplicate button at the bottom left corner.
Navigate to the Build Settings tab and update the Additional CMake Arguments section to -B build_dev. Here, build_dev is the name of the build folder.
Click the OK button to save the configuration.
Click the Build icon from the toolbar (the leftmost icon) for the selected configuration. This will build the project and create a build folder for that configuration. Repeat the same process for the other configuration by selecting it from the dropdown.

Can I use my old C/C++ editor formatter file (.xml) as a `.clang-format` file?

No, you cannot directly use the old .xml (CDT formatter) file with ESP-IDF projects, as these now use the CDT LSP Editor, which relies on Clangd for code formatting. Clangd requires a .clang-format file, and there is no official tool to convert .xml formatter files to the Clang format.

However, Clang provides several default formatting styles (such as LLVM, Google, Mozilla, etc.) that you can use as a starting point. You can generate a default .clang-format file using the following command:

clang-format -style=llvm -dump-config > .clang-format

For new ESP-IDF projects, a .clang-format file is automatically created in the root directory with default settings. This file is picked up by Clangd automatically — no additional configuration is needed.

For existing projects, you can create this file manually by right-clicking the project and selecting ESP-IDF > Create Clangd File.

If you would like to replicate your old formatter settings, you can either:

Manually map your .xml settings to Clang format using Clang’s formatting guide.
Or use an AI tool (e.g., ChatGPT) to assist in converting your old configuration to the new one. After that, manually adjust any discrepancies.

More information on the Clang format can be found in the ClangFormat documentation.

Formatting styles can be found in the Clang-Format Style Options.