Problem executing simple program on Thingy91

[AdBee]

Hello,

I recently acquired a Thingy91 board in order to make a hardware prototype. I already have experience developing with the nRF52840 so I took inspiration from my working project.

First I flashed the straight out "Hello World" sample from the v2.9.0 SDK to the nRF9160 using a J-Link external probe and the "west flash" command with success. I could launch the program and read "Hello World" from a serial terminal.

Then I tried to create a basic setup project by copying what worked on my nRF52840 project. These basic functionalities includes:

_ Versionning

_ Using sysbuild with MCUBOOT

_ Signing firmware with an ECDSA 256 key.

The project successfully built and flashed, but unfortunately, didn't execute. No output can be read from the serial terminal anymore, not even the early logs from the bootloader.

What's a bit worrisome is that I can't manage to get back to a state where things worked. When I try to flash the basic "Hello World" sample again, the program doesn't launch anymore (no output on the serial terminal).

Any idea what could be going on and how to fix this ? I tried switching to the most recent v3.0.1 SDK but with no success.

I'm adding the .tar.gz of the project.

thingy_minimal.tar.gz

Here is my build configuration:

And the output when I flash:

Flashing build_prod to 801051622
west flash -d /home/abourgaud/repos/haugenplus_official/user-node/application/build_prod --dev-id 801051622

-- west flash: rebuilding
[0/6] Performing build step for 'application'
ninja: no work to do.
[1/6] Performing build step for 'mcuboot'
ninja: no work to do.
[3/6] Completed 'application'
[5/6] No install step for 'mcuboot'
[6/6] Completed 'mcuboot'
WARNING: Specifying runner options for multiple domains is experimental.
If problems are experienced, please specify a single domain using '--domain <domain>'
-- west flash: using runner nrfjprog
-- runners.nrfjprog: Flashing file: /home/abourgaud/repos/haugenplus_official/user-node/application/build_prod/mcuboot/zephyr/zephyr.hex
[ ######               ]   0.000s | Erase file - Check image                               [ ####                 ]   0.000s | Check image validity - Initialize device info          [ ########             ]   0.000s | Check image validity - Check region 0 settings         [ ############         ]   0.000s | Check image validity - block 1 of 3                    [ ################     ]   0.007s | Check image validity - block 2 of 3                    [ #################### ]   0.028s | Check image validity - Finished                        [ #############        ]   0.000s | Erase file - Erasing                                   [ ######               ]   0.000s | Erasing non-volatile memory - block 1 of 2             [ #############        ]   0.553s | Erasing non-volatile memory - block 2 of 2             [ #################### ]   0.000s | Erasing non-volatile memory - Erase successful         [ #################### ]   1.291s | Erase file - Done erasing                                                          
[ ######               ]   0.000s | Program file - Checking image                          [ ####                 ]   0.000s | Check image validity - Initialize device info          [ ########             ]   0.000s | Check image validity - Check region 0 settings         [ ############         ]   0.963s | Check image validity - block 1 of 3                    [ ################     ]   0.361s | Check image validity - block 2 of 3                    [ #################### ]   0.004s | Check image validity - Finished                        [ #############        ]   0.000s | Program file - Programming                             [ ######               ]   0.000s | Programming image - block 1 of 2                       [ #############        ]   0.147s | Programming image - block 2 of 2                       [ #################### ]   0.000s | Programming image - Write successful                   [ #################### ]   0.330s | Program file - Done programming                                                    
[ ######               ]   0.000s | Verify file - Check image                              [ ####                 ]   0.000s | Check image validity - Initialize device info          [ ########             ]   0.000s | Check image validity - Check region 0 settings         [ ############         ]   1.224s | Check image validity - block 1 of 3                    [ ################     ]   0.459s | Check image validity - block 2 of 3                    [ #################### ]   0.004s | Check image validity - Finished                        [ #############        ]   0.000s | Verify file - Verifying                                [ ######               ]   0.000s | Verifying image - block 1 of 2                         [ #############        ]   0.144s | Verifying image - block 2 of 2                         [ #################### ]   0.000s | Verifying image - Verify successful                    [ #################### ]   0.304s | Verify file - Done verifying                                                       
-- runners.nrfjprog: Board with serial number 801051622 flashed successfully.
-- west flash: using runner nrfjprog
-- runners.nrfjprog: reset after flashing requested
-- runners.nrfjprog: Flashing file: /home/abourgaud/repos/haugenplus_official/user-node/application/build_prod/application/zephyr/zephyr.signed.hex
[ ######               ]   0.000s | Erase file - Check image                               [ #####                ]   0.000s | Check image validity - Initialize device info          [ ##########           ]   0.000s | Check image validity - Check region 0 settings         [ ###############      ]   0.000s | Check image validity - block 1 of 2                    [ #################### ]   0.028s | Check image validity - Finished                        [ #############        ]   0.000s | Erase file - Erasing                                   [ ##########           ]   0.000s | Erasing non-volatile memory - block 1 of 1             [ #################### ]   0.000s | Erasing non-volatile memory - Erase successful         [ #################### ]   1.510s | Erase file - Done erasing                                                          
[ ######               ]   0.000s | Program file - Checking image                          [ #####                ]   0.000s | Check image validity - Initialize device info          [ ##########           ]   0.000s | Check image validity - Check region 0 settings         [ ###############      ]   0.531s | Check image validity - block 1 of 2                    [ #################### ]   0.002s | Check image validity - Finished                        [ #############        ]   0.000s | Program file - Programming                             [ ##########           ]   0.000s | Programming image - block 1 of 1                       [ #################### ]   0.000s | Programming image - Write successful                   [ #################### ]   0.402s | Program file - Done programming                                                    
[ ######               ]   0.000s | Verify file - Check image                              [ #####                ]   0.000s | Check image validity - Initialize device info          [ ##########           ]   0.000s | Check image validity - Check region 0 settings         [ ###############      ]   0.685s | Check image validity - block 1 of 2                    [ #################### ]   0.002s | Check image validity - Finished                        [ #############        ]   0.000s | Verify file - Verifying                                [ ##########           ]   0.000s | Verifying image - block 1 of 1                         [ #################### ]   0.000s | Verifying image - Verify successful                    [ #################### ]   0.402s | Verify file - Done verifying                                                       
Applying system reset.
Run.
-- runners.nrfjprog: Board with serial number 801051622 flashed successfully.

Thank you for your time,

AdBee

[Øyvind]

Hello, 

The Nordic Thingy:91 USB connector is connected to the USB interface of the nRF52840 SoC. This enables PC communication and battery charging. The nRF52840 comes preprogrammed with the Connectivity Bridge application which  acts as a USB composite device, exposing two UART interfaces to a USB host as two CDC ACM devices.

Did you reprogram the nRF52840? I.e. build for thingy91/nrf52840?

Also, I see that you are building you project for the thingy91/nrf9160 and not the thingy91/nrf9160/ns. The latter is needed in order to communicate with the nRF91 modem from the application core. See Developing with the Thingy:91 for more information.

Kind regards,
Øyvind

[AdBee]

Hello,

Thank you for your fast reply.

I think by using the thingy91/nrf9160 board instead of the thingy/nrf9160/ns, I may have overwritten some useful default partitions.

Following your link, I reinstalled all default images using the nRFConnect for Desktop, reflashed my own code with the thingy/nrf9160/ns board and it appears that it solved my problem.

I have further questions though:

1/ When I switch off/on the device using the SW1 switch, my program doesn't restart from scratch as expected, but rather seems to resume to where it was. How is it ? Is there a bootloader configuration that somehow saves PC and other registers ? Is it possible to change this behavior so that my program actually restarts at every power on ? It is unclear to me how the peripherals behave when their parameters are not explicitly set by my init functions.

2/ With regards to the partitions: I am used to customize them in a pm_static file to enable features such as nvs or BLE settings. But with this "ns" setup it seems that a lot of things are done under the hood that I shouldn't break. How can I customize partitions in this environment ?

Thank you for your time,

AdBee