TouchGFX - No rule to make target

[blueriver]

Dear STM Community,

Over the past while, I have steadily (and successfully) progressed through many STM32/TouchGFX tutorials - with the ultimate aim of sending/receiving data over an RS485 link. Most of these tutorials are produced by Controllerstech. All has been going well until one particular tutorial.

I am using the very latest software:

TouchGFX Designer 4.26.0
STM32CubeIDE 2.0.0
STM32CubeMX 6.16.0

When I build the design in STM32CubeIDE, I get the error message:

make: *** No rule to make target 'C:/Users/XXX/Desktop/TouchGFX-projects/TouchGFX-UART-Control/TouchGFX', needed by 'Utilities/jpeg_utils.o'. Stop.
"make -j16 all" terminated with exit code 2. Build might be incomplete.

One thing I have noted is that this directory doesn't exist:

          C:/Users/XXX/Desktop/TouchGFX-projects/TouchGFX-UART-Control/TouchGFX

Could this be a path length truncation - and hence the error

I have spent days trying to drill down to why this error appears.I have looked online and found many examples on how to fix the problem, but none of them exactly resembles MY problem.

I thought it might be that the tutorials were created using old verions of the TouchGFX or STMCube software. But today, I uninstalled these and installed the latest version. And the same issue is still there.

Today, I created a new project in TouchGFX Designer 4.26.0 which has only a background image - nothing else. I generate the code and then run the simulator and everything appears to be OK.

When I open up STM32CubeIDE 2.0.0 either directly or via TouchGFX, I can see the project - and again all appears to be OK. But when I build the project from STM32CubeIDE, I get the error described above.

***

Now, I have an older tutorial-project (again from Controllerstech) which builds with no errors. I did think that the problem was with my latest project - but this is unlikely because I get the same with a new, very simple project.

***

I am now at a loss where to look and what to do.

Can anyne out there help me?

(be gentle - I am only a mere hardware design engineer - with a cursory knowledge of complex software architectures)

[blueriver]

I have just moved my project to:

C:\Users\XXX\Desktop\TouchGFX-projects\KB2UART\CM7\TouchGFX

from 

C:\Users\smb\Desktop\TouchGFX-projects\TouchGFX-UART-Control\TouchGFX#8-KB2UART

This has a shorter path name.

And the "No rule to make target" error has gone.

I am using windows 11 (latest updates on everything) - is this really a path text length issue?

Regards ...

[JohanAstrup · Accepted solution]

Hello @blueriver.

TouchGFX does not support the hash sign in project names. Try to replace it with either a dash or an underscore.

I haven't been able to find a specification of which characters are supported. However, you can test character compatibility when creating a new project. If the rules are violated, TouchGFX Designer prompts you with an error.

Best regards,
Johan

[blueriver]

Hi Johan,

Many thanks for your reply. 

When I shortened the path - and the issue went away - it was when I unknowingly removed the # from path that cured the problem. I'll ensure I don't add # to the pathway in the future.

I did know that # was not allowed in the application name, but didn't "twig" that it applied to the whole path.

Just a thought ..........

If the design of STCubeXxx and TouchGFX is such that # is deemed invalid, surely the apps must know that it only failed because it could find some info it needed because of a pathway error.

So why can't the error message actually say "invalid pathway" instead of this obscure misleading message.