Error flashing custom board w/ nRF52832 (unable to read)

[towes]

I'm trying to flash a custom board (schematics in this ticket - Schematic/Layout review request) using a Jlink EDU mini and keep running into an error message saying it's failing to read or erase memory. I've seen suggestions on other posts that running nrfjprog --recover can remove the read protection mechanism, but when I ran that (with --log, which I've attached) it also failed.

 

4274.log.log

I've had the flash process succeed sometimes, but the board doesn't act any differently to before (can't control the GPIO) so I'm assuming that's another issue.

Any ideas for what could be causing this?

Thanks

[towes]

The commands have never worked as far as I can tell. Everytime I've included --log it mentions this inability to read memory. As far as I can tell the hardware is fine, the IC is supplied with 3V3 on all the necessary pins (although I've only measured that from the decoupling capacitors since I can't get to the pins with the probes I have currently, I'll test with different ones soon). This is the best I can do image wise of the board, I think there's just enough resolution to see the pins.

[Simonr]

And I assume this board is connected to the J-Link EDU mini via the 10 pin debug header, correct? Are you certain that the pins are routed correctly to the 10pin debug header here, so that the VDD, GND, SWO and SWCLK from the nRF are in fact connected to the corresponding pins on the J-Link? Note that both the board and the J-Link should be powered when you try programming it.

Best regards,

Simon

[towes]

Yes that's the programming header. I've checked the schematic against the 10-pin J-link diagram (and with continuity) and they're all fine. I just copied the schematic for the Nrf52_dk.

I'm pretty sure the J-Link and the MCU are powered, since the nRF connect extension in VSCode detects an nRF52382 in the connected devices tab under the J-Link serial number

[Simonr]

Hi

Okay, since you can see it connected in VS Code, then the connection itself is likely fine. One thing I noticed from your logs is that you have a rather old version of nrfjprog installed. Can you try updating nrfjprog to v10.24.2 or newer, and while you're a it update the J-Link firmware to v7.94i or newer on your end. These are the versions I have working fine on my end.

Best regards,

Simon

[towes]

I'm pretty sure I actually had updated the J-Link firmware to v8.12 when I generated the last log I sent, so not sure why the version was still old. Anyway I updated nrfjprog and tried again and (other than giving me more useful log messages) it doesn't seem to have helped. Here's a screenshot of VSCode in case there's anything not as it should be I'm missing.

v10.24.2 nrfjprog.log