Python API experience on a PC and linux

I have been trying to improve my use of the api. I have a tbeam running 1.1.23, a Windows 10 PC and a linux laptop running Ulyana. I installed python, git, pip and have VS Studio working well on my PC - so I can update my device with the latest code via platformio. However if I go into the power shell terminal all my attempts to run anything starting meshtastic… always give me the error meshtastic is not recognised. Even though I can successfully run pip3 install --upgrade meshtastic. Seems I am missing some key step or dependency.
On my Ulyana I have been working through the user preferences. As anyone used gps_update_rate? Although it is defined in protobufs documentation I cannot find it on my device. Putty serial also gives me the error cannot configure port. Hoping someone has had these issues and can help. Thanks.

hi @feh123

re: “meshtastic” command not found on windows, even after running pip3 install
hmm - I bet it is this. Can you try it and report back? If it fixes it for you I’ll add it to a FAQ.

re: not finding “gps_update_rate” on your device
For values that are still at their default, they are not sent in the protobufs. So if you run “meshtastic --info” and have never set gps_update_interval you won’t see it. But if you run “meshtastic --set gps_update_interval 12345” you should then see it. Can you try this and let me know how it goes?

Note: it is gps_update_interval or gps_attempt_time - not gps_update_rate.

Hi @geeksville thanks for the info. I checked my python path with listpaths and found the active one - python 3.9, I also have 3.8 installed. I tried the win_add2path.py and that executed but did not seem to add a path to my environment variables menu in system properties. However I tried meshtastic --info from both the C:\system and C:…\Scripts folder but only saw the usual error message. I added a system path to the python39 folder using system properties, environment variables. Still no improvement. I also tried ./meshtastic. I have checked that pip3 and setuptools are all installed in python39. I did notice that I do not have a bin folder with python 39 - is that an issue? Do I need wheels?

Hi @geeksville you were right - it was a path problem. But my initial attempts using win_add2path.py or trying to add a path manually to system environment variables were useless. I needed to use the full manual procedure described here: https://datatofish.com/add-python-to-windows-path/. I was not adding both the path to python39 and the path to /Scripts in my initial attempts. Now I will try to understand the gps paramters! Thanks.

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