FATAL ERROR: CMake is not installed or cannot be found; cannot build.

[yuanFang]

Using the 54l15 chip, with the NCSv3.2.1 version, the example is compiled using peripheral_uart.

I have been using this environment for over a year now.

1. When I was compiling today, I encountered the following problem

2. I attempted to delete C:\UserTools\Cmake, but encountered the following error message.

west build --build-dir e:/ncs/low_power_backup/peripheral_uart_update_1/build e:/ncs/low_power_backup/peripheral_uart_update_1 --pristine --board nrf54l15dk/nrf54l15/cpuapp -- -DCONFIG_DEBUG_THREAD_INFO=y

-- west build: generating a build system
FATAL ERROR: CMake is not installed or cannot be found; cannot build.

3. I attempted to reinstall the "NRF Connect for VS Code" within VS Code from scratch.

     FATAL ERROR: CMake is not installed or cannot be found; cannot build.

4. I uninstalled all the extensions of VSCode and finally uninstalled VSCode itself. Then I reinstalled them, but still got an error message.

     FATAL ERROR: CMake is not installed or cannot be found; cannot build.

5. Compile using the nrf connet port



The SDK for my NCS is not on the C drive, but on another drive. I'm not sure if this will cause any problems.The SDK is not on the C drive. I have always used it this way.

Could you please take a look at it and help solve it as soon as possible? It's extremely urgent!

Looking forward to your reply very much.

[Edvin]

Hello,

Can you please try to generate support information:

And paste the output here?

Best regards,

Edvin

[yuanFang]

hello,

thank you for your reply.

When I deleted "E:\nsc", and then re-downloaded a new "toolchains" on the C drive.It can be compiled and built normally.

When I re-added "E:\nsc", and selected "toolchains" as the E drive, the compilation still went smoothly.

After I deleted the "toolchains" folder on the C drive, the problem of being unable to find Cmake occurred.

Looking forward to your reply very much.

Thanks

[Turbo J]

There is another case I've seen and it has the correct solution - which is to manually downgrade the extension to 2026.1.1327 version from ~1 month ago.

[yuanFang]

hello,

I tried to revert the version according to your method, but the installation kept failing. Do you have any solutions?

2026-03-12 09:44:54.308 [error] [Window] Error: End of central directory record signature not found. Either not a zip file, or file is truncated.
    at Ob (file:///d:/Microsoft%20VS%20Code/ce099c1ed2/resources/app/out/vs/code/electron-utility/sharedProcess/sharedProcessMain.js:450:28625)
    at file:///d:/Microsoft%20VS%20Code/ce099c1ed2/resources/app/out/vs/code/electron-utility/sharedProcess/sharedProcessMain.js:450:29929
    at d:\Microsoft VS Code\ce099c1ed2\resources\app\node_modules\yauzl\index.js:40:7
    at d:\Microsoft VS Code\ce099c1ed2\resources\app\node_modules\yauzl\index.js:190:5
    at d:\Microsoft VS Code\ce099c1ed2\resources\app\node_modules\yauzl\index.js:712:5
    at d:\Microsoft VS Code\ce099c1ed2\resources\app\node_modules\yauzl\fd-slicer.js:33:7
    at FSReqCallback.wrapper [as oncomplete] (node:fs:671:5)
2026-03-12 09:44:54.316 [error] [Window] End of central directory record signature not found. Either not a zip file, or file is truncated.: Error: End of central directory record signature not found. Either not a zip file, or file is truncated.
    at Ob (file:///d:/Microsoft%20VS%20Code/ce099c1ed2/resources/app/out/vs/code/electron-utility/sharedProcess/sharedProcessMain.js:450:28625)
    at file:///d:/Microsoft%20VS%20Code/ce099c1ed2/resources/app/out/vs/code/electron-utility/sharedProcess/sharedProcessMain.js:450:29929
    at d:\Microsoft VS Code\ce099c1ed2\resources\app\node_modules\yauzl\index.js:40:7
    at d:\Microsoft VS Code\ce099c1ed2\resources\app\node_modules\yauzl\index.js:190:5
    at d:\Microsoft VS Code\ce099c1ed2\resources\app\node_modules\yauzl\index.js:712:5
    at d:\Microsoft VS Code\ce099c1ed2\resources\app\node_modules\yauzl\fd-slicer.js:33:7
    at FSReqCallback.wrapper [as oncomplete] (node:fs:671:5)

Looking forward to your reply very much.

Thanks