best practices enabling debugging modular sensors using platformIO

You can also enable all of the debugging using a build flag in your platformio.ini. The result is exactly the same as if you un-comment the line in the header. You can add flags for any (or all) of the different modules.

There also seems to be a bug in the very latest PlatformIO (4.0.0) when installing library dependencies. For some reason when I create a new project, add EnviroDIY_ModularSensors to my dependencies, and then try to compile, the library dependency finder doesn’t correctly find and install of of the dependencies during the first build. If I manually install the library using pio lib install EnviroDIY_ModularSensors before building, it finds everything perfectly.

@srgdamiano, does this mean that
https://github.com/vshymanskyy/StreamDebugger.git
is no longer needed in the lib_deps?
(In other words, is Stream Debugger now in Modular Sensors?)

Oh, and just to note about those other build flags:

-DSDI12_EXTERNAL_PCINT – this tells the library that you don’t want the SDI-12 library to try to monopolize the interrupts on an AVR board, which is required to make it “play nice” with the other libraries. You absolutely must set this because the SDI-12 library is a dependency of ModularSensors (even if you’re not using any SDI-12 sensors)

-DNEOSWSERIAL_EXTERNAL_PCINT – this does the same thing to NeoSoftwareSerial. You only need this if you’re actually using that library, though it makes no difference if you define it but don’t use that library.

-DMQTT_MAX_PACKET_SIZE=240 tells the MQTT library (PubSubClient) you need a bigger buffer for the outgoing request. The ThingSpeak publisher is the only one that uses MQTT (so far). I put it at 240 characters, which should be plenty long enough to send 8 fields to ThingSpeak (the maximum that ThingSpeak accepts at once). If you’re only using a few fields you could omit this flag, which would save you a tiny big of RAM, but be cautious because the MQTT library just won’t send the if the request length exceeds the buffer length.

-DTINY_GSM_RX_BUFFER=512 – This is in the examples, but it really only matters if you’re using an ESP8266, AI Thinker, or Neoway M590. Don’t define it and save some some RAM with the GPRSBee.

@fisherba – StreamDebugger is only needed if you include it in your program; it isn’t and never was a dependency of ModularSensors or TinyGSM. It’s not included in ModularSensors.

I’m sorry I’ve not responded. I’m honestly baffled by the errors.

Could you show your whole ini and a shot of the contents of your .pio/libdeps/mayfly folder?

I found the issue with the ThingSpeakDebugger. It’s now been fixed. It might take until tomorrow before PlatformIO “sees” the new version though.

To update your libraries in your current project:
– Open a new terminal in your project in Atom or go to the Terminal pane in VSCode
– type pio lib update
– all your libraries for the project should be updated. Watch for ModularSensors to move from 0.23.3 to 0.23.4.

If you’re feeling very impatient and don’t want to wait for the PlatformIO registries to catch the 0.23.4 update, you can uninstall the registered version of ModularSensors and install it from git instead:
– Open a new terminal in your project
– Uninstall ModularSensors by typing: pio lib uninstall EnviroDIY_ModularSensors
– Open your platformio.ini file in your project
– In the lib_deps section, replace EnviroDIY_ModularSensors with https://github.com/EnviroDIY/ModularSensors.git
– Save the platformio.ini
– “Clean” out any pre-compiled library bits by hitting the trash can button in Atom, or going to project tasks > clean in VSCode
– Re-compile and upload your program