Not able to build anything anymore

After upgrading PIO and/or the platformio framework packages (not sure which one caused these issues), I can no longer build anything anymore. I already removed all framework packages in the .platformio directory, but I cannot compile anything anymore.

Any idea where to look for an option to fix this?

platformio run --environment normal_ESP8266_4M
Processing normal_ESP8266_4M (framework: arduino; platform: https://github.com/TD-er/platform-espressif8266.git#patch/v1.8.0_Puya; board: esp12e)
 
Error: Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "c:\users\gijs\.platformio\penv\lib\site-packages\platformio\__main__.py", line 88, in main
    cli(None, None, None)
  File "c:\users\gijs\.platformio\penv\lib\site-packages\click\core.py", line 700, in __call__

    return self.main(*args, **kwargs)
  File "c:\users\gijs\.platformio\penv\lib\site-packages\click\core.py", line 680, in main
    rv = self.invoke(ctx)
  File "c:\users\gijs\.platformio\penv\lib\site-packages\platformio\commands\__init__.py", line 37, in invoke
    return super(PlatformioCLI, self).invoke(ctx)
  File "c:\users\gijs\.platformio\penv\lib\site-packages\click\core.py", line 1027, in invoke
    return _process_result(sub_ctx.command.invoke(sub_ctx))
  File "c:\users\gijs\.platformio\penv\lib\site-packages\click\core.py", line 873, in invoke
    return ctx.invoke(self.callback, **ctx.params)
  File "c:\users\gijs\.platformio\penv\lib\site-packages\click\core.py", line 508, in invoke
    return callback(*args, **kwargs)
  File "c:\users\gijs\.platformio\penv\lib\site-packages\click\decorators.py", line 16, in new_func
    return f(get_current_context(), *args, **kwargs)
  File "c:\users\gijs\.platformio\penv\lib\site-packages\platformio\commands\run\command.py", line 99, in cli
    result = (envname, ep.process())
  File "c:\users\gijs\.platformio\penv\lib\site-packages\platformio\commands\run\processor.py", line 61, in process
    result = self._run_platform()
  File "c:\users\gijs\.platformio\penv\lib\site-packages\platformio\commands\run\processor.py", line 115, in _run_platform
    return p.run(build_vars, build_targets, self.silent, self.verbose)
  File "c:\users\gijs\.platformio\penv\lib\site-packages\platformio\managers\platform.py", line 373, in run
    assert isinstance(targets, list)
AssertionError
 
============================================================
 
An unexpected error occurred. Further steps:
 
* Verify that you have the latest version of PlatformIO using
  `pip install -U platformio` command
 
* Try to find answer in FAQ Troubleshooting section
  https://docs.platformio.org/page/faq.html
 
* Report this problem to the developers
  https://github.com/platformio/platformio-core/issues
 
============================================================

[TD-er]

I have changed the = "" into ‘=’ and also tested a build with the dev version of PIO core 4.0.0rc2 Building works fine now.

[mcspr]

Regarding the targets = in config, it does fail there because it does not return the specified default=[] https://github.com/platformio/platformio-core/blob/0ce23438368e4d9fa323649c0ad7f9027ce26938/platformio/commands/run/processor.py#L87 https://github.com/platformio/platformio-core/blame/0ce23438368e4d9fa323649c0ad7f9027ce26938/platformio/project/config.py#L207

Technically .ini does specify it, but empty string is not treated as list. So I am not sure whether this is an issue or not. Error traceback does look scarrer for what is really happenig https://github.com/platformio/platformio-core/blame/0ce23438368e4d9fa323649c0ad7f9027ce26938/platformio/project/options.py#L93

@ivankravets Here’s minimal ini test (this should be added to tests?):

[env:blah]
platform = espressif32
board = lolin32
framework = arduino
targets =