Addressing DFU Fragility

RE: Addressing DFU Fragility

underpickled — Thu, 11 Jan 2024 18:59:49 GMT

I believe it is working. I think the "fragility" I experienced was related to the different apps and settings sometimes working and sometimes not working. It seems to work reliably with a defined set of parameters. I appreciate the support!

RE: Addressing DFU Fragility

Sigurd Hellesvik — Thu, 11 Jan 2024 08:23:28 GMT

Good to know about the inconsistency with the test, it is noted.

Does this mean that your DFU procedure works now, or are there still issues?

RE: Addressing DFU Fragility

underpickled — Wed, 10 Jan 2024 19:45:51 GMT

You're onto something here, but there's some inconsistency with my testing.
In NRF Connect, DFU works if I set buffers to 2, but I can still DFU from NRF Device Manager with buffers set to 8.

RE: Addressing DFU Fragility

Sigurd Hellesvik — Wed, 10 Jan 2024 09:22:59 GMT

From our developers:

so, a couple of things:

nRF Connect Device Manager is currently "ahead" in terms of the underlying DFU library, has a more updated version. But I think that might not be the issue here.

I'd ask the customer to go to the top of the Logs screen, and enable all log levels. They should see a lot of blue lines, which are the Data bytes being sent back and forth. I think the DFU fails because the nRF Connect app is probably sending too much data too fast to the firmware device, and the firmware device doesn't have multiple buffers / reassembly enabled. This can be adjusted in the nRF Connect app just bellow the Start button, there are some settings, and setting number of buffers to 2 might help. Also enabling reassembly / multiple buffers on the firmware, flashing it and then attempting to do DFU should work.

There's some documentation regarding the McuMgr DFU Parameters here https://github.com/NordicSemiconductor/IOS-nRF-Connect-Device-Manager

RE: Addressing DFU Fragility

underpickled — Tue, 09 Jan 2024 21:05:19 GMT

NRF Connect for Mobile: 2.7.2 (51)

Device manager: 1.5.3 (9)

Thanks!

RE: Addressing DFU Fragility

Sigurd Hellesvik — Tue, 09 Jan 2024 07:43:22 GMT

Good find.
Can you list which versions of the apps you have?
Then I will report it to our app developers.

RE: Addressing DFU Fragility

underpickled — Mon, 08 Jan 2024 19:38:55 GMT

Hi Sigurd, I think this is an issue with the NRF Connect app for Mobile. I was able to DFU with the NRF Device Manager app. Notably, when I tried to DFU on the device manager app without any configuration it also failed, but once I read the boot manager info and selected the appropriate slot, I had no issues.

RE: Addressing DFU Fragility

Sigurd Hellesvik — Mon, 08 Jan 2024 12:13:56 GMT

DFU will be ignored if the firmware hash is the same, so I suspect that it just looks like it works, but nothing is happening.

First, it would be nice to see if it is a firmware error, or an error of the mobile app. Can you test a know sample with the mobile app and see if you are able to do FOTA then? Try the SMP Server sample.

RE: Addressing DFU Fragility

underpickled — Fri, 05 Jan 2024 20:16:42 GMT

After some more testing I've realized it only appears to work when it's the exact same firmware already on it. If I build a new image with a very slight change, I encounter the error above.

RE: Addressing DFU Fragility

Sigurd Hellesvik — Fri, 05 Jan 2024 12:29:21 GMT

Hi,

I will look into this and return with more information at the start of next week.

Regards,
Sigurd Hellesvik