.. _west-troubleshooting:

Troubleshooting West
####################

This page covers common issues with west and how to solve them.

"invalid choice: 'post-init'"
*****************************

If you see this error when running ``west init``:

.. code-block:: none

   west: error: argument <command>: invalid choice: 'post-init'
   (choose from 'init', 'update', 'list', 'manifest', 'diff',
   'status', 'forall', 'config', 'selfupdate', 'help')

Then you have an old version of west installed, and are trying to use it in a
workspace that requires a more recent version.

The easiest way to resolve this issue is to upgrade west and retry as follows:

#. Install the latest west with the ``-U`` option for ``pip3 install`` as shown
   in :ref:`west-install`.

#. Back up any contents of :file:`zephyrproject/.west/config` that you want to
   save. (If you don't have any configuration options set, it's safe to skip
   this step.)

#. Completely remove the :file:`zephyrproject/.west` directory (if you don't,
   you will get the "already in a workspace" error message discussed next).

#. Run ``west init`` again.

"already in an installation"
****************************

You may see this error when running ``west init`` with west 0.6:

.. code-block:: none

   FATAL ERROR: already in an installation (<some directory>), aborting

If this is unexpected and you're really trying to create a new west workspace,
then it's likely that west is using the :envvar:`ZEPHYR_BASE` :ref:`environment
variable <env_vars>` to locate a workspace elsewhere on your system.

This is intentional; it allows you to put your Zephyr applications in
any directory and still use west to build, flash, and debug them, for example.

To resolve this issue, unset :envvar:`ZEPHYR_BASE` and try again.