cannot talk to dongle after connect

[JimmyD]

I connect to the nRF52840-MDK dongle thru the Serial Terminal (nRF52 Connectivity) it found the comm port and set the baudrate automatically. However, the terminal window constantly fills up the screen with ~/ characters. it repeats every 1 second. What I would like is detailed instructions on how to configure this dongle to be a BT 5 sniffer and read the Extended Advertising for any BT device near the dongle. It would also be helpful to filter the devices seen. Eventually I like to use Python to filter the choices and obtain the advertises data where I can parse the data received. I'm using Windows 10 pro.

Thanks.

[ovrebekk]

Hi James

The nRF Sniffer is documented here. In particular you can refer to the chapter caller nRF Sniffer Usage.

The dongle needs to be programmed with the hex file included in the sniffer download, most likely it has the wrong firmware. This will be described in the documentation I linked to above. 

The sniffer does provide a Python interface, and you can find it documented in the Sniffer API Guide document included in the doc folder of the sniffer download. 

Best regards
Torbjørn

[JimmyD]

Torbjørn,

            The instruction for installation is very hard to follow and leads to a dead end.

First your link takes me to nRF Sniffer usage. The index on the side “Installing the nRF Sniffer starts off as if it is already installed. Very confusing!!

Another is the SnifferAPI.

I cannot find it anywhere.

Since I took too long to try and get this working, I have other priorities, But will circle back to try and get this to work.

Due to my time allocation for this project is short.

Please give me some dummy proof steps to get this working.

 

 

I see a bunch of python code under the nrf_sniffer_for_bluetooth_le_4.1.1 directory I downloaded, but I don’t know which one I need for my application.

 

Greatly appreciate it.

 

James DeLorenzo

[JimmyD]

I loaded nrf_Sniffer_for_bluetooth_le_4.1.1,uf2 into the device.

However, I tried to run the Sniffer.py and I got an error "Input Error: attempted to import with no known parent package" It seems every python program that is in this folder (every downloaded) cannot run.

1) What do I load into the dongle and where do I get it?

2) what python script can I run as a stand alone, and where do I get that?

I will look into what you sent but I remember trying it before so I don't have any optimism that it will work.

I appreciate your help. So far I have not gotten anywhere close to what I aim to accomplish.

[JimmyD]

It appears that example.py does printout a scan.  However, I like it to print out the MAC address along with the extended advertising message. Please let me know if this can be done. Thanks.

[JimmyD]

With some modifications to Device.py I was able to have the return value in hex for the MAC address.

However, the scan results does not show the extended advertising. Is there a configuration of some sort to return extended advertising?

[JimmyD]

FYI: Your release_notes.txt states that in version 4.0.0 added support for Extended Advertising. I need to know how to implement it on the dongle AND get it on the PC. I'm using the example.py you suggested to try and figure it out. so far, I'm still stuck.

[ovrebekk]

Hi James

The scan(..) function have an argument called findAux which is set to False by default. I believe this argument needs to be set True in order to pick up extended advertisement packets. 

Could you try to start scanning with this argument set and see if it works better? 

In order to do so just call the scan function like this:

mySniffer.scan(findAux=True)

Best regards
Torbjørn

[JimmyD]

This did not change the output. I want to be sure we are on the same page.

I'm calling example.py from the command line.

Within this file, the call to mySniffer.scan(findAux=True) now looks like this.

The output did not change form before I made the change.

[JimmyD]

Also, I noticed that within the file Types.py there are constants. Referring to the ones that start with ADV_TYPE_xxx. I see that there is one named ADV_TYPE_ADV_EXT_IND that I thought would work.  However I did  a search for ADV_TYPE and could not find where these constants are being used.

[JimmyD]

Could I add one more request about example.py? Testing would go much faster if it can print out only certain MAC address that starts with an address from a list of MAC addresses.

Example: print out D2:72:7B:D6 (remaining digits I don't care). I'll need about 6 MAC address to look for with different prefixes.

[JimmyD]

Before I forget, once the dongle finds and prints the device name and MAC address, I also need the data of the extended advertising.

Thanks.

Jim D

[JimmyD]

I haven't gotten an answer in 2 days, this is very important that I try to get this working in the next few days. A coworker has started to look into this and is searching for a way to accomplish this task. If he succeeds that means all the dongles we brought from you will go back for a return and will implement his method.