SDK 3.0.0 custom board definition

[Tiit]

I'm having trouble porting my project from the older SDK (2.6.0) to the new SDK. 

I thought the most straightforward way to do that would be to start with a sample project similar to what I want to do. So I took the Matter Window Cover Sample. I have the nRF54L15-DK so I compiled the project for that board and it seems to work.

Now I use the VSCode button to create a new board. After closing VSCode and opening it again I can select my new custom board as the target for the build. It fails as my custom board is pretty much just boilerplate empty board definitions. So I start copying the contents of the nRF54L15-DK board definitions to my own custom board folder. The aim being to get the project to compile for the same dev kit with my custom board as the target. Ideally I would make no changes to the files but due to custom name I still have to do that. This also means I have to make another partition manager static definition file. I just copy the one used for the DK build and rename it for my custom board.

After fighting with some very hard to fix devicetree errors I get compilation process to reach the partition manager stage and there is something weird happening there. I have the exact same contents for the static definition file as the DK but for my board the build fails complaining about too many gaps in the partitions. I'm attaching the actual file I use for this.

pm_static_blindy_v3_nrf54l15_cpuapp.zip

The error I get from partition manager is this:

-- Found partition manager static configuration : /home/tiit/code/nordic/blindy_matter/pm_static_blindy_v3_nrf54l15_cpuapp.yml
Partition 'mcuboot' is not included in the dynamic resolving since it is statically defined.
Partition 'mcuboot_pad' is not included in the dynamic resolving since it is statically defined.
Partition 'mcuboot_primary' is not included in the dynamic resolving since it is statically defined.
Partition 'mcuboot_primary_app' is not included in the dynamic resolving since it is statically defined.
Partition 'settings_storage' is not included in the dynamic resolving since it is statically defined.
Partition 'mcuboot_secondary' is not included in the dynamic resolving since it is statically defined.
Partition manager failed: Incorrect amount of gaps found in static configuration. There must be exactly one gap in the static configuration to support placing the dynamic partitions (such as 'app'). Gaps found (2):0xd800-0x165000 0x17d000-0x172000 The most common solution to this problem is to fill the smallest of these gaps with statically defined partition(s) until there is only one gap left. Alternatively re-order the already defined static partitions so that only one gap remains.
Failed to partition region flash_primary, size of region: 1462272
Partition Configuration:
app:
  size: 1460224
factory_data:
  size: 4096
mcuboot:
  size: 53248
mcuboot_pad:
  size: 2048
mcuboot_primary:
  size: 1462272
mcuboot_primary_app:
  size: 1460224
settings_storage:
  size: 40960

-- Configuring incomplete, errors occurred!

Can you please check what I'm doing wrong here to cause this. This is somehow caused by using the custom board definition. I'm also attaching the whole custom board folder here just in case you can see something weird in there. This is just the folder that has to be extracted into the boards folder and after a VSCode restart it appears as a target for the build.

soma.zip

Hoping to hear back from you after the Easter Holidays,

Tiit

[Tiit]

Hi Andreas,

I'm sorry for being so helpless with this. 

So I tried searching for "if BOARD_NRF54L15" in the whole 3.0.1 SDK I have. The only matches I found are either in the DK board directory (and I have these in my board files as well, I checked) and in the Matter samples directory (of which I guess only the Window Cover samples is important). The one in the sample directory should only apply to _NS builds which I don't care about for now. So this is still something different. There are a lot of references to "NRF54L" but those should already apply as my board should also select the correct SOC version and that would match all those instances where needed.

I'm actually not sure why the ZMS thing would be needed for my board overlay to be honest. Because after this search of the SDK I did not see where it would be set for the DK and not set for a custom board. This is all very confusing.

Tiit

[AHaug]

No worries, and sorry for not being more helpful/clear.

The ZMS thing is just an example I'm bringing up as things that you need to look for w.r.t what you might be missing. You can set it up through configurations instead. The Matter samples simply automatically include ZMS for that build target since ZMS is better than NVS is for RRAM.

If you find anything that depends on the 54l15dk board target that you try to port to your custom board based on the 54l15dk then you need to add that so that the sample compiles to exclude what the root cause may be.

Did you have any luck with compiling any other samples that were more complex than the Hello World sample, but less complex than the Matter samples?

Tiit said:

I hope you can suggest what else I can try. While waiting for your reply I will try to compile different samples for that board and see where it works and where is breaks - maybe that will give a clue as to what could be the issue.

The second part we need to move any further is to investigate where it hangs and for what reasons it hangs i.e logging and debugging. I know you said that your device hangs without booting the application, but we should be able to find out where if you enter a debug session and some breakpoints 

Kind regards,
Andreas

[Tiit]

Hi Andreas,

I have tried this board configuration with quite a few samples now and have found no problems so far. I have tried the BLE LBS sample and also the Zephyr MCUboot sample. These should exercise the same types of hardware as the Matter sample. I also tried more simple examples and they all also work as expected. My next step is to try to find a sample with Thread. I have not tried the other Matter samples yet but I will also try those as soon as possible. I was sure the MCUBoot sample would fail as that would also have all those offset issues, right?

I will also try the debugger as you suggested. I have another issue in another support thread here as well and it takes me a while to switch between these two issues unfortunately as I have to install and uninstall the SDK and build systems all the time. I apologize for taking time to get back to you.

I also tried to find where in the SDK ZMS is activated for the nRF54L15 DK and the Matter sample and I could not find that. I really hope this is not done somewhere in the toolchain. I'm currently using SDK and toolchain versions that match but as far as I've seen there are tons of projects where SDK and toolchain versions are not in sync and this would cause all kinds of bad things for those. You gave the ZMS as an example of something that is done differently for the DK from customs boards but can you please show where this gets tacked onto the DK builds (and not to custom boards)? I'm having trouble finding any place where this would get added to DK builds and not to custom boards.

Tiit

[Tiit]

Hi again,

I tried the coap_server sample as that should use Thread and not much else. So my guess is it should run on all the Nordic DK-s. ANd I tried compiling it with no changes for the nRF52840-DK where it does work (blinking led when a button is pressed and printing out something over serial), Building the same thing for the nRF54L15-DK succeeds but after flashing the DK does nothing again. Is that sample supposed to work on that DK? There are no DK specific files in that sample so it should just use the standard DK setup I guess. Many other samples also did not have a specific setup for the DK but still worked. The only thing that sample sets in the overlay for the 52840 DK is selecting a different RNG which should not really matter, right?

Am I correct to deduce from this that the issue is with Thread on the nRF54L board? Can you also try compiling the coap_server sample for the 54L15 and see if that works for you? Maybe there is an issue with my hardware? The weird thing is that the matter sample built for the DK still works but built using the custom board that should now be identical to the DK configuration (except for name) fails to run.

Tiit

[Edvin]

Hello Tiit,

I am sorry for the late reply. Andreas is currently out of office, and he will be for a few weeks. We are working on a large backlog (in tech support, not from Andreas), and hence, since this is a fairly long thread. Is it possible for you to summarize the current situation, and what you need from me in one post? Thank you for understanding, and I am sorry for the inconvenience!

Best regards,

Edvin