Is ST Cube IDE a piece of buggy crap?

[peter-h]

I am not aware of any "nice to have" Cube IDE fixes since I've been using it, c. 2018. Maybe something not obvious.

[elektryk]

Clones are a good thing, surely? I am using a 32F417 and if I use software crypto then there is a chinese 32F407 which "should" be the same.

Legit F407/F417 should also be compatible each other.
Check how many problems are generated by F103 clones, different flash page sizes, problems with ADC DMA...

What I have seen is that full time employees like picking the latest chips (because the company is picking up the huge bill for the learning curve, and extra parts stock) while contractors and business owners stick with chips with which they have lots of experience

This time it was about something that would be available for a long time. Learning something new is also an interesting aspect.

I also have not seen the 32F417 get more pricey. It is roughly back to pre-covid levels now. Which chips have you seen go up significantly?

I use 32F407, which I want to replace with 32H562. It has its drawbacks, but the second model is twice as cheap.

btw Cube IDE 16.1 seems to work on Win7. I changed ST GDB Server to OpenOCD and selected software reset.
For now I only did the test with Discovery 32F407, the only downside its that MCU stays in reset state after programming with green arrow button (Run).

[elektryk]

I am not aware of any "nice to have" Cube IDE fixes since I've been using it, c. 2018. Maybe something not obvious.

I'm tryin' the new version hoping that they will fix opening of (not quite) random files problem. New MCU is other reason, otherwise I would still use AC6.

[peter-h]

No; that random file opening problem has not been fixed. Endless threads on the ST forum.

What actually happens is that Cube opens whatever source file the CPU happened to be "in" when it got stopped/started. It is not a random file. The fix is fairly obvious but needs hacking around in the Eclipse breakpoint handling code (it was discussed in this thread way back too) and evidently nobody in ST wants to get into it.

Cube IDE 16.1 seems to work on Win7. I changed ST GDB Server to OpenOCD and selected software reset.

Very interesting; thanks.

Do you need new Cube IDE (1.16.x) for the 32H562? I think there should just be a CPU type config somewhere.

[Kjelt]

This time it was about something that would be available for a long time.

Indeed the company I worked for the commercial and hardware architects choose the chip, even to which RAM size it was limited for costs but also for long term availability.
The joke was back then that ST would sell its newest chips for way less than the established ones , first because production was starting for full soon and second to push the new chip in the field. Sometimes we had prototypes delivery year before launch and the agreement was that any issue should be reported right away.
At least half the addendum would either be from this stage or solved if possible.

[peter-h]

That's a bad way to choose a MCU, but it is probably OK for a large OEM user who will always get priority when times are hard and there is a large scale panic (covid). A small business owner will choose the common commodity option, even if it means some (usually dirt cheap) discrete components on the board, especially if there is in-house expertise, tools, etc.