libusb0.dll missing

[kristofmulier]

libusb0.dll missing

At Embeetle IDE, we provide one of your Windows releases on our download server. One of our users experienced the following error on Windows 10 when trying to run the executable:

The error message reads:

avrdude.exe - System Error
The code execution cannot proceed because libusb0.dll was not found. Reinstalling the program may fix this problem.

 

AVRDUDE version

The user downloaded the following AVRDUDE version:
https://new.embeetle/downloads/beetle_tools/windows/avrdude_7.0.0_32b.7z

It's basically one of your 7.0 releases. I don't remember if it's 7.0-arduino.1, 7.0-arduino.2-rc1 or 7.0-arduino.2 (it certainly isn't 7.0-arduino.3 yet). When I run the executable on my PC, I only get this version output:

avrdude version 7.0, URL: <https://github.com/avrdudes/avrdude>

So I know it's version 7.0 - but not more specific.

Notes

• Didn't you link the libusb library statically? Why is AVRDUDE looking around for the dll?
• I sent your latest 7.0-arduino.3 release to the user experiencing the above mentioned problem. He just ran a test and the problem is still there.

[mariusgreuel]

@kristofmulier It seems like the Arduino release uses libusb0. May I suggest that you use the official MSVC avrdude releases instead, or the MSVC build procedure if you wish to build it yourself?

The Windows MSVC build is very different from the MinGW build, as it links against a rewritten libusb and ftdi library. I designed these libraries to fix some of the most common problems of the previous releases, which is the lack of native WinUSB and FTDI driver support. If you link against libusb0, that means your release it lacking WinUSB support, which is terrible for Windows users, because many devices will not work with a WinUSB based plug-and-play driver.

Details here: https://github.com/avrdudes/avrdude/wiki/The-story-on-libusb-for-Windows

In short, we should not enforce the use of outdated driver technology such as libusb0.sys by not supporting WinUSB.

I would appreciate it very much if a major distribution such as Arduino would pick up the official Windows release from
https://github.com/avrdudes/avrdude/releases/tag/v7.0
or alternatively, use the msvc workflow from
https://github.com/avrdudes/avrdude/blob/main/.github/workflows/build.yml

[kristofmulier]

@mariusgreuel ,
So I should take the Windows binaries from:
https://github.com/avrdudes/avrdude/releases/tag/v7.0

and the Linux binaries from:
https://github.com/arduino/avrdude-packing/releases/tag/7.0-arduino.3

(because the official avrdude repo has no Linux binaries yet)

Correct?

[umbynos]

I did not know about this story. For sure, we will try to solve the problem. Thanks for the detailed report, and for the explanation.

[mariusgreuel]

So I should take the Windows binaries from

Yes.

Didn't you link the libusb library statically? Why is AVRDUDE looking around for the dll?

Even if you link statically to libusb-0.1, the library introduces a DLL dependency to libusb0.dll. That DLL ships with the libusb0.sys driver package, I guess with the intention that there is another layer in between, which allows for breaking changes in the libusb0.sys driver. However, the design flaw is that libusb-0.1 has a static dependency to libusb0.dll - if the driver package is not installed (because it is not needed), you get the error message you attached. The fix would have been to load libusb0.dll dynamically.

To workaround that problem, everybody ships libusb0.dll as a side-by-side DLL with avrdude - thus breaking the idea of being able to update that DLL via the driver package.

So, the Arduino release links libusb-0.1 correctly - it is your responsibility to ship libusb0.dll as well for those people who do not have the libusb0.sys driver package installed.

Note that if you choose to use the MSVC release of avrdude, you should NOT ship libusb0.dll. Instead, you can rely on the libusb0.sys driver package to install a matching libusb0.dll.

[kristofmulier]

Note that if you choose to use the MSVC release of avrdude, you should NOT ship libusb0.dll. Instead, you can rely on the libusb0.sys driver package to install a matching libusb0.dll.

Great to hear that libusb0.sys does this automatically. Is that libusb0.sys driver present on every Windows by default? Or does the user need to install it manually?

PS: My knowledge about libusb is very limited. Forgive me if my question sounds stupid.

[mcuee]

WinUSB driver is the way to go. libusb0.sys (or libusbk.sys) is not available by default under Windows -- you usually use Zadig (or libusbk-inf-wizard) to instal the driver which will then install libusb0.dll/libusbk.dll for you as well.

Best way is for the HW vendors to go with WCID, then you do not need to worry about driver installation for newer version of Windows.
https://github.com/pbatard/libwdi/wiki/WCID-Devices

There are good alternative FW to offer WCID compatible FW for USBASP. My favorite is this one but it does not work with official avrdude 7.0 Windows binary due to avrdudes/avrdude#968
https://github.com/dioannidis/usbasp

The following WCID compliant FW is also pretty good and should work with the official avrdude 7.0 binary.
https://github.com/nerdralph/usbasp

BTW, quite some Microchip AVR tools now use WinUSB as the driver, for example, the popular AVR ISP mkii.

[mcuee]

There is no static mingw-compatible libary for libusb-win32 in reality. libusb-win32 project and libusbk project do not support building the driver or static library using mingw. The only thing we support is the way to dynamically import the DDK/MSVC dll to use with MinGW.

[mariusgreuel]

Is that libusb0.sys driver present on every Windows by default?

It is neither a Windows provided driver, nor a Plug-And-Play driver (i.e. provided through the Windows Update Catalog). It can only be installed manually by the user or by third-party applications.

Hence, the author lost total control over his ability to update the driver. As there has not been any updates in years, I would think it is safe to assume that millions of computers are left vulnerable through this unmanaged driver package. Just one of the many reasons not to distribute (or promote distribution of) libusb0.sys.

[mcuee]

Even though I am one of the admins of libusb-win32 project, I do not really recommend to use it as it is in maintainence mode.
Ref: https://github.com/mcuee/libusb-win32/wiki

libusb-win32 is now in Bug-Fix-Only maintenance mode. It is recommended new project should migrate to libusb-1.0 API and use libusb Windows (http://libusb.info/) instead. For Windows only project, you can also look at libusbK below (http://libusbk.sourceforge.net/UsbK3/index.html).

That being said, we have not declared libusb-win32 project dead yet as there are still many users. The current developer (Peter Dons Tychsen) has fixed a few issues in libusb-win32 1.2.6.0 release and come out with release 1.2.7.3. It is marked as snapshot release due to missing the driver installers and some updates (like porting to new WDK). It should be a good upgrade for the existing users who still want to keep using libsub-win32 for various reasons.
Example: Microchip FLIP still uses libusb-win32 and have not upgraded to use WinUSB.
Example: there are legacy devices which do not work with WinUSB due to FW issues.

Update history:
https://github.com/mcuee/libusb-win32/commits/master
https://github.com/mcuee/libusb-win32/releases

1.2.7.3 is the default download in libusb-win32 Sourceforge site and I can see there are more downloads of 1.2.7.3 version compared to 1.2.6.0 version.
https://sourceforge.net/projects/libusb-win32/files/

[mcuee]

@umbynos
As I know you are using cross-compile and MinGW, the simple fix is just to ship the libusb0.dll with your binary.

The other solution is to switch to libusb-compat-0.1 which sits on top of libusb-1.0. With libusb-1.0.26 release, libusb0.sys can be used without issues, at least for the purpose of avrdude/Arduino.

Edit to update: if you follow the instructions in the official avrdude wiki, you will actually use the second option and the result binary will actually not depend on libusb0.dll (all libusb-win32 library). Same if you use build.sh under MSYS2 mingw32/64.
https://github.com/avrdudes/avrdude/wiki/Building-AVRDUDE-for-Windows-using-MSYS2

My personal avrdude MSYS2 mingw64 build here are all using the second option (to use libusb-1.0 + libusb-compat-0.1).
https://github.com/mcuee/avrdude/releases/tag/v7.0

[umbynos]

@mcuee thanks for the suggestion!