When using esp-idf, libraries downloaded by PlatformIO are not found, but there is workaround

[AgainPsychoX]

See https://docs.platformio.org/en/latest/frameworks/espidf.html#esp-idf-components
(source at https://github.com/platformio/platformio-docs/blob/develop/frameworks/espidf_extra.rst)

By docs, EXTRA_COMPONENT_DIRS is to be set as library name. It would work if one had their library directly in main folder (which contains src, etc.). By some digging I found out, you can actually make it work better, by adding .pio/libdeps/${board} as components search directory, i.e.:

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.16.0)
include($ENV{IDF_PATH}/tools/cmake/project.cmake)
list(APPEND EXTRA_COMPONENT_DIRS .pio/libdeps/esp32cam)
project(YellowToyCar)

The solution also fixes issues with Kconfig not being found. Some libraries (like esp32cam itself that I use) encourage to append their Kconfig to user main component src/Kconfig which, at least to me, looks ugly.

The solution might need some refining (and confirmation) I guess. I am not confident with PlatformIO / esp-idf myself, but I am posting it here (as an issue) so maybe other, more knowledgeable people could look at it. Anyway, it works for me ;)

[valeros]

Hi @AgainPsychoX!

In a nutshell, this is expected behavior and I'd recommend storing your full-featured IDF components outside the lib folder to keep your project backward compatible with the native IDF build system. The typical approach is to create a new folder components in the root of your project and clone any dependency in the form of a Git submodule (take a look at the AWS-IoT example https://github.com/platformio/platform-espressif32/tree/develop/examples/espidf-aws-iot). This way you won't even need to set the EXTRA_COMPONENT_DIRS variable. Anyway, if you need a library from the PlatformIO Registry to be processed as an IDF component (e.g. reading options from the Kconfig file) your approach is just fine, as these libraries have to be added to the EXTRA_COMPONENT_DIRS one way or another. Just keep in mind that, there is a possible issue that these components may be built twice, once by the IDF build system and the second time by PlatformIO which is not what developers expect. Proper integration of the IDF components is tracked in the platform repository: platformio/platform-espressif32#479 and platformio/platform-espressif32#453.

[Jimis333]

Hi
If I get it right you make a "components" folder inside your root folder and place your libraries there.

I'm trying to flash this example from Git
https://github.com/espressif/esp-idf/tree/master/examples/get-started/hello_world

I started looking up the libraries needed and placing them inside the components folder in root. I soon realized that they are endless and some are more than one in many folders so you don't know which one to choose.
So I just copy-pasted the complete "components" folder from .. c:\Users...\esp\esp-idf\components\ to my root.
(Adding the path in C/C++ Extension configuration ..\esp\esp-idf\components\ didn't work)

The intellisense was satisfied and had no warning about missing libs but

1. when I try to build it using the command prompt ESP-IDF 5.0 CMD I get an error
   " .../esp/esp-idf/components/freertos/FreeRTOS-Kernel/portable/port_common.c:128: undefined reference to `app_main'"
2. If I compile through VS code platformio I get another error shown in the picture

Can someone point to the right direction on solving this ?

[Jimis333]

Looks like it's too complicated to have both ESP-IDF and platformio working together. I followed the ESP-IDF directions step by step and it worked fine. I stopped using platformio
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lc6ausiKvQM