Problems with nRF sniffer

[SidPrice]

I have a dongle attached to my Windows PC and it has the nRF Sniffer firmware flashed onto it. I have also installed the nRF Sniffer extension for Wireshark.

When I start a capture, I see many Advertisements, including for the peripheral I wish to monitor/debug. However, when my app connects to device under test, I do not see any interaction in Wireshark, the same is tur when I write data to the DUT.

I need some help getting the packets the two devices are sending shown in Wireshark.

The device and the app are operating as expected, I just do not see the interaction in Wireshark.

Sid

[ovrebekk]

Hi Sid

Do you make sure to select the device you want to track, before the connection is established? 
Otherwise you will not be able to follow the connection. 

This is explained in more detail in the nRF Sniffer usage chapter of the documentation. 

Best regards
Torbjørn

[SidPrice]

Thank you, when I tried to capture this morning all now seems to be working. I must assume there was some kind of "pilot error" when I was trying this yesterday.

Again, thank you,

Sid

[SidPrice]

A little more information, just after I replied all was working, I once again did not see anything other than advertisements in the Wireshark capture. I tried to reboot my computer, that did not change anything. Finally, I power-cycled the dongle and then, once again, I saw the packet data I was looking for.

Sid

[ovrebekk]

Hi Sid

Interesting, I haven't seen reports of this kind of behavior before. 

Are you using a standard nRF52840 dongle? 

If you are able to find some pattern regarding when it fails or not, please let me know...

Best regards
Torbjørn

[coder123]

I'm also interested in this question as I am seeing the same thing.

NRF BLE Throughput example is running on a 52840 DK and 52840 dongle with a dongle BLE sniffer in between. I select the advertising peripheral before connection is established.

After connection I see a lot of Master/Slave "Empty PDU" packets. But once I type in "run" on the central side which starts the throughput test I get no more packets coming through on wireshark and nothing is captured during the entire transmission, Happening every time for me.

[ovrebekk]

Hi

Would you be able to test again when using a DK as the sniffer, or by using a USB extension cable to move the sniffer dongle away from the PC/hub? 

Alternatively, run the sniffer from one PC, and the devices under test from another. 

It's a bit of a long shot, but it is common for noise generated by the USB ports to influence RF performance when there is activity on the USB bus, this might be a factor here. If the sniffer drops too many packets in the connection it might lose the sync altogether. 

Best regards
Torbjørn