Recently I'm trying to setup CLion and STM32CubeMX as I want to switch to a new IDE (By the way, the fact that STM32CubeIDE still doesn't have features like auto-triggered content asist, and that its poor, buggy GUI has bad compatibility with high DPI screen are just annoying). However, when I successfully generate the project in CubeMX and open it in CLion, CLion refuses to compile the project no matter what. I tried the bundled MinGW, CubeCLT1.18 and the older 1.16, and also CLion 2025.1, 2025.1.2, 2025.1.3. All didn't work. Up till this point I've been using CubeMX 6.15, and so I tried to install and use the older version (6.14.0). Everything suddenly works then. The project compiles without problem. Therefore, I suspect that there are some problems in the newest release of CubeMX (6.15) that are generating faulty CMake files.
Here are some screenshots of what happened. I used the same version of CLion and CubeCLT in the same configuration on two projects generated by CubeMX6.15 and 6.14. One compiled and the other didn't. The project created with CubeMX 6.15 cannot build at all and prompts that the compiler is broken.
PS: I've switched back to 6.14.1 for some days and everything is working alright.
1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION
Accepted Solutions
The root cause of the issue is related to how the toolchain file was specified in previous MX versions.
Previously, the toolchain file was defined in two locations: CMakePresets.cmake and CMakeLists.txt.
Starting with version 6.15, the specification in CMakeLists.txt has been removed, and it is now retained only in CMakePresets.cmake. This change was made to eliminate redundancy and to simplify switching between GCC and starm-clang .
To be able to build the 6.15 projects with Clion we need to specify the toolchain file in the Clion project:
- Go to menu File -> Settings -> Build, Execution, Deployment -> CMake
- In “CMake options” field , we need to add the toolchain file variable for GCC :
-DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=./cmake/gcc-arm-none-eabi.cmake
Note: To use starm-clng instead of gcc, you need to add : -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=./cmake/starm-clang.cmake
Thanks.
Mahmoud
The root cause of the issue is related to how the toolchain file was specified in previous MX versions.
Previously, the toolchain file was defined in two locations: CMakePresets.cmake and CMakeLists.txt.
Starting with version 6.15, the specification in CMakeLists.txt has been removed, and it is now retained only in CMakePresets.cmake. This change was made to eliminate redundancy and to simplify switching between GCC and starm-clang .
To be able to build the 6.15 projects with Clion we need to specify the toolchain file in the Clion project:
- Go to menu File -> Settings -> Build, Execution, Deployment -> CMake
- In “CMake options” field , we need to add the toolchain file variable for GCC :
-DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=./cmake/gcc-arm-none-eabi.cmake
Note: To use starm-clng instead of gcc, you need to add : -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=./cmake/starm-clang.cmake
Thanks.
Mahmoud
Hello,
I'm a CLion developer. I have just verified, starm-clang toolchain works with CLion as a charm.
You don’t need to specify any toolchains using the -D switch. Everything is already configured via CMakePresets.json. These presets are automatically imported into CLion as CMake profiles—you can see them in the screenshot. Simply delete the default "Debug" profile and enable the "Debug - Debug" one instead. This process is documented here:
https://www.jetbrains.com/help/clion/embedded-stm32.html#new-project
Starting with version 2025.2 (currently available as a Beta), this setup will be done automatically.The feature is posponed, unfortunately. It will we availabel later
If you have any questions related to CLion and STM32, feel free to reach out to me directly.
