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]

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.

[runsiv]

Thank you for the feedback. We will need to figure out why you can't detects the device. 
Could you run the following commands for me?

nrfutil device --version
nrfutil --version

Regards

Runar