nrfConnect problems - no connected devices found

[Svein]

The last couple of months I have been following the course “nRF Connect SDK Fundamentals”, but I am unable to get further than Exercise 2. This is because Visual Studio cannot find any connected device. I use the board PCA10056 and SDK version is v2.6.2 and the “nrf Connect for VS Code Extension Pack” is version 2024.9.5.
The nrfConenct are re-installed several times along with Visual Studio.

I must mention that in the very beginning of the course I was able to find the board (connected devices), but then I had to have a pause for some weeks to do another job and when I continued the course for soon 2 weeks ago, I was not able to find the connected board.
I have read pages up and down about this but have not found any solution that helps.
If someone can give me a “step by step” instruction on how to solve the problem I would be very happy.

Kind regards
Svein

PS. Reason for running the course: I have used SDK17.1.0 and Segger Embedded Studio for 4-5 years now and the company I work for is considering to upgrade the Development Environment.

[lsoria]

I don't know if it's related or not, but lately I'm experiencing similar issues in which I cannot see anything under the nRF Connect extension tab (I'm using VSCode under WSL2). If I click the "Refresh" button under the Connected Devices an error appears like in the picture:

For me it works just disabling the extension, reloading the window and enabling it again. But it's annoying to do this every time I open the editor. Can you try reloading the extension?

[Svein]

Hi Isoria,

Unfortunately disabling, reloading and enabling the extension didn't help.

After many hours of troubleshooting it seems that there is a problem with the definition of the path to nrfutil, but I have no idea how to verify or fix it

Kind regards

Svein

[Einar Thorsrud]

Hi Svein,

Have you installed nfutil on your system, and added it to your system path? After that you can use "nrfutil serach" and "nrfutil install device".

[Svein]

Hi Einar,

I have done and as mentioned in my first post on this thread, it worked after the first installation and then after some weeks of inactivity in my course it stopped to work. It might be that there has been some updates during the pause of the course. I will check to see if something have happened with the system path. 

Kind regards

Svein

[Svein]

Hi Einar,

I gave up trying to find what's wrong, bought a new cheap laptop with Windows 11 and then installed nrf-Connect according to instructions I found on a youtube video. Now I can find the connected device.  I have now continued with the course. I have managed to create a new application(based on Blinky), flashed it to a PCA10056DK and it works. Phuuuuuu, first major step achived.

:-)  Svein

PS: I was afraid to continue playing with nrfConnect on the development PC because I have the nrf52 environment there with SES and SDK17.1.0 and was afraid that playing more with nrfutil and paths could negatively affect this. Hence the new laptop