No SoftwareSerial lib for v2.4?

[JonSilver]

I note that SoftwareSerial has disappeared from core v2.4. If one needs to use SoftwareSerial for development, which library should now be used?

[devyte]

@igrr I don't see SoftwareSerial under libraries in latest git. Is this intentional?

[igrr]

It gets included when building a boards manager package here: https://github.com/esp8266/Arduino/blob/master/package/build_boards_manager_package.sh#L63-L68

I just ran this script locally and the SoftwareSerial library ended up being included in the package. Not sure why this didn't happen with 2.4.0-rc1 package though.

As a workaround, you can download SoftwareSerial library as a zip file and then install it into the IDE using "install library from zip file" feature.

Will troubleshoot this when building the package next time, thanks for the report.

[JonSilver]

Thanks @igrr - good to know it's not an intentional omission 🙂
And while I'm here, thanks for all your great work on the ESP8266 Arduino Core.

[devyte]

@igrr I propose to have git build with softwareserial in a similar manner as lwip or axtls. I think having libs missing in the git build causes too much confusion.
What do you think?

[igrr]

Verified that this is fixed in latest git (and 2.4.0-rc2 has SoftwareSerial).

[dragondaud]

With a fresh install of the latest github release it is leaving an empty SoftwareSerial directory under libraries, which is generating errors:

Invalid library found in /Users/daud/Documents/Arduino/hardware/esp8266com/esp8266/libraries/SoftwareSerial: no headers files (.h) found in /Users/daud/Documents/Arduino/hardware/esp8266com/esp8266/libraries/SoftwareSerial

I am not using SoftwareSerial, but these errors were not present previously. Deleting the empty directory cures the problem.

[devyte]

Were you playing with the ongoing release (tag 2.5.0-beta1), then tried rolling back?

[dragondaud]

No, it was a fresh clone, this morning, from github, followed by a get.py for the tools.

[d-a-v]

This new SoftwareSerial directory in libraries directory is a git-submodule.
To populate it, use

git submodule update --init

[dragondaud]

Gotcha! FYI: I just discovered that its not from the fresh clone, but when my script does git reset --hard origin/master that the errant directory is created. I thought that command would make sure any local changes were reset, but apparently it does more...

[phrxmd]

Here's a fix for the install docs to make it clearer what to do if you get errors related to SoftwareSerial: #5602.