SerialUploader NullPointerException: Serial upload broken in 1.6.8

[probonopd]

Using 1.6.8 Hourly Build 2016/01/19 08:26 and previous, uploading via the serial port seems to be entirely broken and leads to

processing.app.debug.RunnerException
    at cc.arduino.packages.uploaders.SerialUploader.uploadUsingPreferences(SerialUploader.java:179)
    at cc.arduino.UploaderUtils.upload(UploaderUtils.java:78)
    at processing.app.Sketch.upload(Sketch.java:1187)
    at processing.app.Sketch.exportApplet(Sketch.java:1161)
    at processing.app.Sketch.exportApplet(Sketch.java:1133)
    at processing.app.Editor$DefaultExportHandler.run(Editor.java:2417)
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)
Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException
    at java.lang.String.replace(String.java:2240)
    at processing.app.helpers.StringReplacer.replaceFromMapping(StringReplacer.java:97)
    at processing.app.helpers.StringReplacer.replaceFromMapping(StringReplacer.java:89)
    at processing.app.helpers.StringReplacer.formatAndSplit(StringReplacer.java:37)
    at cc.arduino.packages.uploaders.SerialUploader.uploadUsingPreferences(SerialUploader.java:174)
    ... 6 more

I can reproduce this on Linux and OS X.

[probonopd]

I can reproduce this with ESP8266 and also with an Arduino Pro Mini, so I assume it is an issue with the Arduino IDE.

[probonopd]

@me-no-dev points toward me-no-dev@b3c91ab#diff-db26f03d5207a3a0d217244f3de0950fR156 and suspects that boardPort.getPrefs().get("iserial") returns NULL, and should be changed to boardPort.getPrefs().getOrExcept("iserial") to trigger an exception and not fill the item.

[me-no-dev]

here is a better link: https://github.com/arduino/Arduino/blob/master/arduino-core/src/cc/arduino/packages/uploaders/SerialUploader.java#L156-L161

[probonopd]

I can confirm that the change proposed by @me-no-dev works for me.

[cmaglie]

Fixed by #4472

[fa7ca7]

I still have NullPointerException during upload on the last stable version of SDK.
OS: Linux
Version: 1.6.12
Steps to reproduce:

$ arduino --upload --board arduino:avr:mega:cpu=atmega2560 --port /dev/ttyUSB0 Sketch.ino

What should I do?

[facchinm]

Hi @dethoter , you are encountering another problem with CLI that we fixed in mainline. If you use the nightly build you won't encounter this bug.

[fa7ca7]

@facchinm, thank you, it was very helpful.