Seeed Xiao nRF52840 app crashes when linking in Zigbee support

[krrk]

I'm trying to develop a Zigbee application for the Seeed Xiao nRF52840 BLE board.

I can compile the "Blinky" demo app in nRF Connect for VS Code and run it on the board. But when I enable Zigbee by applying this diff, the app apparently crashes at startup (the LED does not blink). How can I get Zigbee support working on this board?

Some details:

I'm running nRF Connect 2.6.0 on macOS.

I build the Blinky app by choosing "Create a new application", "Copy a sample", "Blinky Sample", then "Add build configuration", select "xiao_ble" board, then "Build Configuration". Afterwards I flash it by connecting the board with a USB-C cable to my laptop, double tapping the reset button on the board, and dragging the build/zephyr/zephyr.uf2 file onto the XIAO-SENSE drive.

If I then apply the above diff, re-build, and repeat the flashing process, the LED never turns on, which I think is because the app crashes at startup.

[Amanda Hsieh]

Hi, 

How can I get Zigbee support working on this board?

I would suggest you start with Zigbee samples to familiarize with Zigbee. 

Regards,
Amanda H.

[krrk]

I did start with the Zigbee samples. They were also unresponsive when I ran them on the Seeed Xiao (for example, the Zigbee Shell example did not open the USB serial port). So I decided to start from a working example and try to figure out the minimal change needed to cause a crash.

[Amanda Hsieh]

krrk said:

They were also unresponsive when I ran them on the Seeed Xiao (for example, the Zigbee Shell example did not open the USB serial port).

I guess you missed the overlay file as https://github.com/nrfconnect/sdk-nrf/tree/v2.6.0/samples/zigbee/shell/boards for Seeed Xiao. You can duplicate from nRF52840 and rename it for your board. 

[krrk]

I tried copying nrf52840dk_nrf52840.overlay and naming it xiao_ble.overlay. I then built for the xiao_ble board (and it showed up in the "Compatible boards" list this time).

However, when I run the app on the board, the board is unresponsive. I think this app is supposed to open a USB serial connection, but I don't see the board when I try to open an nRF Serial Terminal in VSCode. I also tried turning on the board's LED at the start of main() but the LED did not light.

How can I debug this further? Are there other things you'd recommend trying?

My code is at https://github.com/kerrickstaley/seeed-xiao-zigbee-shell .

[Amanda Hsieh]

Hi, 

I am not familiar with the Seeed Xiao board, but I see https://developer.nordicsemi.com/nRF_Connect_SDK/doc/latest/zephyr/boards/arm/xiao_ble/doc/index.html#testing-shell-over-usb-in-the-xiao-ble-sense 

Maybe you can start from there, and then compare the .config and .dts files under the build folder to see what is missing. 

-Amanda H.