Enable the locally hosted web-server UI when building from source in PlatformIO

[CozeDoge]

I'm a hobbyist and by no means an expert.

But I'm trying to get the web-server UI enabled when building from source using the recommended PlatformIO.

I seem to get the web-server enabled, but the UI isn't there;

When I check the data/ directory, the index.html doesn't exist and I'm unsure how to get it there..

I saw in some forum posts and on the discord chat that the files are meant to be auto-generated somehow when compiling.

I feel like I'm missing something pretty simple here and appreciate any help!
Many thanks in advance!!

[fifieldt]

The web source lives in a different repository: https://github.com/meshtastic/web

Have a look under bin and .github in the firmware repo and you'll see a few scripts that automate pulling it in

[CozeDoge]

Thanks, I'm not familiar with PlatformIO, but I thought that compiling there would use those scripts and pull the web ui source during that process, which doesn't seem it does (and was my problem).

An elegant solution for this was put forward by bubbalicious9679 on the discord server as per below (in case it is useful to anyone else in the future):

---

Bubbalicious
—
6/26/25, 11:56 PM
I got it to work by:

Downloading standard MT Firmware zip (version 2.6.11)

Separately generating my custom firmware in VScode, then replacing standard Bin files from zip with my Bin files from VScode compile process:

firmware.factory.bin => firmware-heltec-v3-2.6.11.60ec05e.bin
firmware.bin => firmware-heltec-v3-2.6.11.60ec05e-update.bin

Then running manual install scripts from MT firmware zip:

./device-install.sh -p /dev/ttyUSB0 -f firmware-heltec-v3-2.6.11.60ec05e.bin --web
./device-update.sh -p /dev/ttyUSB0 -f firmware-heltec-v3-2.6.11.60ec05e-update.bin

These files also needed to be in folder with install scripts:
bleota-s3.bin
littlefswebui-heltec-v3-2.6.11.60ec05e.bin

And it worked, good luck.