STM32 VS Code Extension and Devcontainer

[pcb]

I am a happy VSCode developer using docker devcontainers to create an easily reproducible environment for development. I am struggling with a strange bug with the "STM32 VS Code Extension" (v2.0.1).

If I try to access it, after opening the container, I get the following error:
"Cannot activate the 'STM32 VS Code Extension' extension because it depends on the 'C/C++ Extension Pack' extension, which is not loaded. Would you like to reload the window to load the extension?"

This is strange because the C/C++ Extension Pack is loaded and part of my dev container.

I have the option to "Reload Window", but hitting it only results in a reload and the same message popping back up.

Has anyone been able to use this vscode extension inside a devcontainer?

[Nawres GHARBI]

Hi @pcb 

we are currently trying to reproduce the issue, we will keep you informed.

 

[Nawres GHARBI]

Hi @pcb 

Could you please attach the content of 'output' 'debug console' and 'terminal' windows when you are getting the issue please ? 

[pcb]

Thank you for looking into this, @Nawres GHARBI 

"Debug Console" and "Terminal" are both empty, no text there.

See attached photo.

[mongolracer]

Same problem here:

reinstalled, rebooted etc etc.

[Nawres GHARBI]

hello @pcb @mongolracer 

could you please follow the steps in this link and give your feedback

https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-python/issues/15972

[pcb]

@Nawres GHARBI I don't understand what you want me to do here.

Please elaborate.

I have Jupyter, pylance, and python extensions in vscode and STM32 VS Code extension works.

In my devcontainer I have none of them installed, the there the STM32 VS Code extension does not work.

[kmcwithey]

I'm having the same issue.  It looks like the STM32 VS Code extension is installing locally instead of in the container.  Since C/C++ extension is installed in the container, STM32 VS Code extension doesn't see it.  

Ideally, STM32 VS Code Extension and STM32CubeMX should be in the container so we can generate code to the source directory in the container.  That way we don't have to make the source directory available to the host (major performance hit while compiling), or sync it through a remote GIT repo (creates unnecessary commits, and add an unnecessary step to the process).  

 

[marca]

I'm having the same issue. Any News?

[kestrel]

Experiencing the same issue. I think it it a problem of the STM32 VS Code Extension.

It is stil not fixed by now.

Docker 27.0.2, Run container in privileged mode.

 

 

[sslebie]

I was able to get this error to go away if i changed my profile to "Default" which doesnt have the STM32 extension on it

 

[sslebie]

Yeah by doing that I was able to install the STM32CubeCLT, build my project, and properly generate an elf file.

 

I'm wondering if you just need the STM32 VS Code Extension not to be installed on the local host. I'm going to work on getting the Dockerfile setup properly so that the image can fully build.

 

Do you know how to pass a USB device (The STLink Debugger tool) from Windows into the Docker Image?

[kestrel]

I only have the "Default' profile. And since it works very well on the host machine, I think it is not the issue you have suggested. 

 

Image from Visual Studio Code. Developing inside a Container.

And due to the way VSCode extension works, the host machine must have the extension installed to use it inside the container. Therefore, I think that the secons issue is also not the case I am experiencing now.

I also attach the Dockerfile I used to build an image. The entrypoint.sh is just a simple "bash -c sleep infinity".

 

 

RG BASEIMAGE
ARG BASETAG

# STAGE FOR CACHING APT PACKAGE LIST
FROM ${BASEIMAGE}:${BASETAG} AS stage_apt

SHELL ["/bin/bash", "-o", "pipefail", "-c"]

ENV \
 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive \
 LANG=C.UTF-8 \
 LC_ALL=C.UTF-8

RUN \
 rm -rf /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/docker-clean \
	&& echo 'Binary::apt::APT::Keep-Downloaded-Packages "true";' > /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/keep-cache \
	&& apt-get update

# STAGE FOR INSTALLING APT DEPENDENCIES
FROM ${BASEIMAGE}:${BASETAG} AS stage_deps

SHELL ["/bin/bash", "-o", "pipefail", "-c"]

ENV \
 DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive \
 LANG=C.UTF-8 \
 LC_ALL=C.UTF-8 \
 LICENSE_ALREADY_ACCEPTED=1 \
 JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-11-openjdk-amd64

COPY aptDeps.txt /tmp/aptDeps.txt

# INSTALL APT DEPENDENCIES USING CACHE OF stage_apt
RUN \
 --mount=type=cache,target=/var/cache/apt,from=stage_apt,source=/var/cache/apt \
 --mount=type=cache,target=/var/lib/apt,from=stage_apt,source=/var/lib/apt \
 --mount=type=cache,target=/etc/apt/sources.list.d,from=stage_apt,source=/etc/apt/sources.list.d \
	apt-get install --no-install-recommends -y $(cat /tmp/aptDeps.txt) \
 && rm -rf /tmp/*

COPY \
 resource/en.st-stm32cubeclt_1.12.1_16088_20230420_1057_amd64.deb_bundle.sh.zip \
 /tmp/en.st-stm32cubeclt_1.12.1_16088_20230420_1057_amd64.deb_bundle.sh.zip

# INSTALL STM32CUBECTL
RUN \
 --mount=type=cache,target=/var/cache/apt,from=stage_apt,source=/var/cache/apt \
 --mount=type=cache,target=/var/lib/apt,from=stage_apt,source=/var/lib/apt \
 --mount=type=cache,target=/etc/apt/sources.list.d,from=stage_apt,source=/etc/apt/sources.list.d \
 unzip -q /tmp/en.st-stm32cubeclt_1.12.1_16088_20230420_1057_amd64.deb_bundle.sh.zip -d /tmp/stm32cubeclt \
 && chmod +x /tmp/stm32cubeclt/st-stm32cubeclt_1.12.1_16088_20230420_1057_amd64.deb_bundle.sh \
 && /tmp/stm32cubeclt/st-stm32cubeclt_1.12.1_16088_20230420_1057_amd64.deb_bundle.sh --target /tmp/stm32cubeclt/debfiles --noexec \
 && apt-get install -y /tmp/stm32cubeclt/debfiles/*.deb \
 && chmod 755 -R /opt/st/stm32cubeclt_1.12.1 \
 && rm -rf /tmp/*

COPY \
 resource/en.stm32cubemx-lin-v6-8-1.zip \
 /tmp/en.stm32cubemx-lin-v6-8-1.zip

COPY \
 resource/auto-install-cubemx.xml \
 /tmp/auto-install-cubemx.xml

# INSTALL STM32CUBEMX
RUN \
 unzip -q /tmp/en.stm32cubemx-lin-v6-8-1.zip -d /tmp/stm32cubemx \
 && chmod +x /tmp/stm32cubemx/SetupSTM32CubeMX-6.8.1 \
 && /tmp/stm32cubemx/SetupSTM32CubeMX-6.8.1 /tmp/auto-install-cubemx.xml \
 && chmod 755 -R /usr/local/STMicroelectronics/STM32Cube/STM32CubeMX/jre \
 && rm -rf /tmp/*

COPY \
 resource/en.st-mcu-finderlin-v6-0-0.zip \
 /tmp/en.st-mcu-finderlin-v6-0-0.zip

COPY \
 resource/auto-install-stm-mcu-finder.xml \
 /tmp/auto-install-stm-mcu-finder.xml

# INSTALL STMMCUFINDER
RUN \
 unzip -q /tmp/en.st-mcu-finderlin-v6-0-0.zip -d /tmp/st-mcu-finderlin \
 && /tmp/st-mcu-finderlin/SetupSTMCUFinder-6.0.0 /tmp/auto-install-stm-mcu-finder.xml \
 && chmod 755 -R /usr/local/STMicroelectronics/STMCUFinder/jre \
 && rm -rf /tmp/*

COPY \
 resource/en.st-stm32cubeide_1.12.1_16088_20230420_1057_amd64.sh.zip \
 /tmp/en.st-stm32cubeide_1.12.1_16088_20230420_1057_amd64.sh.zip

# INSTALL STM32CUBEIDE
RUN \
 unzip -q /tmp/en.st-stm32cubeide_1.12.1_16088_20230420_1057_amd64.sh.zip -d /tmp/stm32cubeide \
 && chmod +x /tmp/stm32cubeide/st-stm32cubeide_1.12.1_16088_20230420_1057_amd64.sh \
 && /tmp/stm32cubeide/st-stm32cubeide_1.12.1_16088_20230420_1057_amd64.sh --target /tmp/stm32cubeide/debfiles --noexec \
 && sed -i '23,43d' /tmp/stm32cubeide/debfiles/install_as_root.sh

WORKDIR /tmp/stm32cubeide/debfiles

RUN \
 /tmp/stm32cubeide/debfiles/setup.sh /opt/st/stm32cubeide_1.12.1 \
 && chmod 755 -R /opt/st/stm32cubeide_1.12.1 \
 && rm -rf /tmp/*

WORKDIR /

# ADD NON-ROOT USER user FOR RUNNING THE WEBUI
RUN \
 groupadd user \
 && useradd -ms /bin/bash user -g user \
 && echo "user ALL=NOPASSWD: ALL" >> /etc/sudoers

USER user
WORKDIR /home/user

RUN \
 ln -s /usr/local/STMicroelectronics/STM32Cube/STM32CubeMX /home/user/STM32CubeMX \
 && ln -s /usr/local/STMicroelectronics/STMCUFinder /home/user/STMCUFinder \
 && ln -s /opt/st/stm32cubeide_1.12.1 /home/user/STM32CubeIDE \
 && ln -s /opt/st/stm32cubeclt_1.12.1 /home/user/STM32CubeCLT

COPY entrypoint.sh /usr/local/bin/entrypoint.sh

ENTRYPOINT ["/usr/local/bin/entrypoint.sh"]

 

 

Paths will be:

• CubeMX: /home/user/STM32CubeMX/STM32CubeMX
• CubeCLT: /opt/st/stm32cubeclt_1.12.1
• STMCUFinder: /home/user/STMCUFinder/STMCUFinder

In order to pass the USB device from the WIndows host to the docker container running on the hyper-V, the method I can think of is to use a docker running on WSL. Through USBIP, you can pass the USB device attached to the Windows host to the client on the WSL session.

After this, passing the USB device on the WSL host to the docker container through "device" option or volume mount with privileged flag will work. However, I can't think of the working way for the docker container running directly on the Hyper-V environment. I don't know which docker environment is the case of yours, but if it is the case of the latter one, I think it would be better to use a docker running on WSL.

By the way, I work on the Ubuntu instead of the WSL or Docker Desktop on Windows. I personally have bad user experience for USBIP or equivalent solutions when working on hardware-driven devices.

 

Ah, I think the version might be the issue for my case. The extension recommends CubeCLT v1.15.0 and version of other packaged to be higher.

[sslebie]

I was able to get a simple Nucleo Project built and running through the Dev Container!

 

I had to pass the STLink through WSL like you suggested. I'm working on refining the Docker Image to include all the supporting applications and trying to streamline the workflow so I can actually start using this and sharing it!

[Nawres GHARBI]

Hi @pcb 

https://community.st.com/t5/stm32-vscode-extension-mcus/how-to-integrate-stm32-extension-to-devcontainer/td-p/759462