Compatibility Issues with NRF51822AB and JLINK After Upgrading to Programmer v4.4.2

[oliver0804]

• Using Programmer v4.0.1 can successfully read the NRF51822AB, but upgrading to the latest version 4.4.2 results in a failure to read the device.

• Additionally, after updating to version 4.4.2, JLINK in the VSCODE environment is unable to detect the correct device.

• However, using JLINKEXE works without any issues.

[runsiv]

Hi OliverYan I will be looking into the issue. Could you provide the verbose log from the programmer app? You can enable this in the about tab in the programmer app. 

Regards

Runar

[oliver0804]

2024-12-04T09_32_31.932Z-log.txt

[runsiv]

Thanks for the logs. The easiest way would be to uninstall command line tool and install an older version. 

From what I can see in the programmer app documentation here the whole 51 series is marked as deprecated. I will update when I have more

Regards

Runar

[oliver0804]

This is disappointing news.

May I ask if the same situation applies to the nRF SDK for the NRF51?

Is there a guide for rolling back VSCODE to a previous version?

[runsiv]

As I understand it, there is no plan to do anything regarding the 51822. I'm however not sure what the test status is for the device in regards to the samples in the sdk. You should not need to rollback VScode itself as it might only be needed to switch back to the previous version of command line tools. nrfjprog is a part of this

Regards

Runar

[oliver0804]

However, after updating to version 4.4.2, which also required me to update JLINK to 7.94i, I am now unable to recognize the NRF51822 target in VSCODE.

[runsiv]

I'm still trying to find out what we tested with the 51 series. 
To install another version of the programmer app you can do it by selecting the install other version in the nrf connect for desktop app

You would also need need to downgrade the Jlink as I suspect it is what may be causing the issue

Regards

Runar

[runsiv]

Update:

It seems there is a bug introduced by nrfutil-device 2.6.1. If you downgrade to v2.6.0 it should be working again

nrfutil install device=<version_number> --force 

Regards

Runar

[runsiv]

Just an update: It is confirmed as a bug and the VScode team will look into it. I can't  any timeline at the moment

Regards

Runar

[oliver0804]

It turns out that nrfutil install device=2.6.0 didn’t work for me.

I had to downgrade the nRF Connect for VS Code extension in VS Code to restore functionality (reverting to version 2024.9.87 worked).

By the way, the 2024.12.55 version of nRF Connect for VS Code, released just a few hours ago, seems to have broken SDK and Toolchain version management. Even though I installed multiple SDK versions, I couldn’t switch between them.

Although this isn’t directly related to the main issue, I thought I’d mention it.

2024.9.87:

2024.12.55:

[runsiv]

Hi

Thanks for the feedback. They have changed where to switch SDK version in the new extension. Now you do it in the build configuration window

I can also tell you that the tools team have released a new version of nrfutil device(2.7.1) which fixes the nRF51 bug. This update should be out now and can be installed by the command I posted earlier

Regards

Runar

[oliver0804]

Thank you for the team's hard work.

What I want to mention is that when using the latest version of nRF Connect for VS Code (2024.12.55), the Connected Devices panel can only detect the nRF52840 via JLINK, but it fails to recognize the nRF51 series devices I have.

For some legacy projects, I have to inform other developers in the community that they must use an older version of nRF Connect to detect nRF51 targets. While it’s understandable that NSC has discontinued support and maintenance for the nRF51 series, I believe that since nRF Connect for VS Code relies on JLINK functionality, it shouldn’t be abandoned in the VS Code extension altogether.