OpenOCD debugging not working on boards with new flash protector

RE: OpenOCD debugging not working on boards with new flash protector

Susheel Nuguru — Tue, 05 Sep 2023 06:50:54 GMT

[quote user="Yury Morgunov"]Is Monitor mode debugging available under license on pca10056?[/quote]

I think that the J-Link OB that is included on the DKs does not include a license for monitor mode debugging. On Windows machines, the J-Link driver will allow evaluation of the monitor mode debugging feature if the user accepts a license pop-up.

[quote user="Yury Morgunov"]The goal is to completely stop the processor and see the current state[/quote]

That should not be a problem with any debugger, but we do not test this and I do not think we support OpenOCD with NCS but it looks like Zephyr does.

RE: OpenOCD debugging not working on boards with new flash protector

Yury Morgunov — Tue, 05 Sep 2023 06:27:38 GMT

Yes, I am using the application with softdevice. The goal is to completely stop the processor and see the current state. I don't need to step through the code. In general, openocd did an excellent job with this task.

Is Monitor mode debugging available under license on pca10056?

RE: OpenOCD debugging not working on boards with new flash protector

Susheel Nuguru — Mon, 04 Sep 2023 11:50:11 GMT

Which application are you running on the board? Is it a BLE based application using the softdevice? If so, then you cannot pause and run the application.

You might have to use Monitor mode debugging to be able to do that

RE: OpenOCD debugging not working on boards with new flash protector

Yury Morgunov — Mon, 04 Sep 2023 09:25:32 GMT

I got to the point where I started using openocd. Here is the command to start the server.

JLinkGDBServer -singlerun -nogui -if swd -port 50000 -swoport 50001 -telnetport 50002 -device nrf52840_xxaa -select usb=1050232322 -rtos GDBServer/RTOSPlugin_FreeRTOS.so -speed 1000 -noir -nohalt

Everything works, everything starts, but there is one important problem. FreeRTOS streams are not readable.
Manual requests for thread or stack information:

info threads
  Id   Target Id         Frame 
  2    Remote target     0x00025f40 in ?? ()

The current thread <Thread ID 
1> has terminated.  See `help thread'.
{"output":"","token":37,"outOfBandRecord":[],"resultRecords":{"resultClass":"done","results":[]}}

bt
The current thread has terminated
The current thread has terminated (from interpreter-exec console "bt")

I can only get this information if I continue executing the code and immediately pause it. Then everything starts to work, but this is not what is needed.

[New Thread 537086184]
[New Thread 537084752]
[New Thread 537088640]
[New Thread 537097944]
[New Thread 537095784]
[New Thread 537091976]
[New Thread 537069128]
[New Thread 537078200]

Thread 
3 received signal SIGTRAP, Trace/breakpoint trap.
[Switching to Thread 537086184]
0x0006f3c0 in nrfx_coredep_delay_us::delay_machine_code ()

I don't have enough understanding of the debugging process to do anything with this.

RE: OpenOCD debugging not working on boards with new flash protector

Yury Morgunov — Mon, 04 Sep 2023 09:08:06 GMT

Yes, the devices connect and work well via jlink. Debugging even works.

Thanks for the hint, I'll try to attach it through the jlink debugger.

RE: OpenOCD debugging not working on boards with new flash protector

Turbo J — Fri, 01 Sep 2023 11:57:52 GMT

Do the J-link devices show up in dmesg or in "lsusb" at all?

The J-Link GDB server can attach to running code with the "-noir -nohalt" command line parameters.