ESP8266 Community Forum

Just getting started using ESP8266 using ESP01. I have followed the instructions at
https://github.com/esp8266/Arduino/
I am using a FTDI serial interface at 115k baud and the AT commands work as advertised and I can connect to the web.

Then, using the GPIO=0 and toggling CH_PD, I tried to download the basic sketch with no code other than the empty setup and loop. The code compiled, then when time to download, I get an error java.io.IOException Cannot run python.exe.

I do have a version of python on my machine under cygwin from previous work. I am not sure whether python should have been installed with the Arduino stuff.

My system is Windows 7 and the Arduino is newly updated to 1.6.5.

Help!
Fred Klein

You don't need python to use ArduinoIDE (although it can be useful for something else ).
Turn ON Verbose flag in Preferences and try again to UpLoad and provide us the command line where it is failing.

I fixed this problem. While trying to make the selections, I had tried Tools; Upload Using set to Serial and something didn't seem right, then changed to OTA. This is where I got the reference to python. Just now I reverted back to Serial and the download succeeded.

Thanks for looking.
Fred Klein

Python is required if you upload OTA updates to the board.
Though when I tried to set up OTA, I got the same error, despite of python is installed and available in PATH.
Not sure why this happens. As a quick fix, you can edit your platform.txt in arduino distribution folder. Change corresponding tools.espota.* variable to a full path to the python, e.g.