nrf54L15, mx24r64 and FOTA

RE: nrf54L15, mx24r64 and FOTA

AHaug — Thu, 10 Jul 2025 12:12:03 GMT

Great! Glad to hear that the firmware is compiling on your end as well!

I will mark this case as resolved for now, but feel free to ask follow up questions. I will however be OoO from tomorrow for a few weeks, so a reply should come faster from our side if you create new cases than if you reply with a follow up here

Kind regards,
Andreas

RE: nrf54L15, mx24r64 and FOTA

Jasper_Golden — Thu, 10 Jul 2025 10:59:38 GMT

Hi Andreas .... and apology!

I glazed over the build setup and did not pick up that it was automatically selecting the wrong CPU/board. (82 part) I thought it would have selected the 54L as that was the board we dealing with. Completely missed that detail.

I can confirm that it compiles fully without errors. Thank you once again.

I still need to go over the detail you provided in previous message in order that I can make sense/learn how you put this together. Thank You again. I think you could close this thread now. If I find anything else, can start something new for that.

Regards

Brian

RE: nrf54L15, mx24r64 and FOTA

AHaug — Thu, 10 Jul 2025 10:37:19 GMT

[quote user="Jasper_Golden"]I had high hopes .... Opened your file and tried to build. [/quote]

I double checked that I could build it with VS Code extension and not just in command line and it build out of the box for me using this configuration.

I see that you have an overlay in the image you attached. Could you

Delete any build folders that are within the project you're currently working with so that we ensure a completely pristine build
Build with the same setup as I've done in the image pasted above

Kind regards,
Andreas

RE: nrf54L15, mx24r64 and FOTA

AHaug — Thu, 10 Jul 2025 10:28:59 GMT

[quote user="Jasper_Golden"] is this kind of detail referenced anywhere[/quote]

I guess "FOTA for the nRF54L15 with secondary partition located on the external flash" is not documented explicitly anywhere, but here's a breakdown of what I did

Made a copy of the solution from Lesson 9, exercise 5 of the intermediate course. This sample is basically the peripheral_lbs sample with added BLE FOTA support for single bank without internal flash. By following the course content you will get an overview over how to create a BLE application, and the solution should work out of the box for the nrf54l15dk/nrf54l15/cpuapp build target
Next I took the contents of Lesson 9, exercise 3, and added that to my copy of the solution of the previous step. Since the nrf54l15 has the external flash connected over SPI, I had to choose the SPI solution
I made a board directory where I took the contents of the "app_mx.overlay" and pasted that into the boards/nrf54l15dk_nrf54l15_cpuapp.overlay that you see in the zip
1. The reason for why I'm doing this is so that for every time I compile the project for the nRF54L15DK CPUapp target it will pick up this specific overlay file
I copied the missing configurations from L9E3 SPI -> into my copy of L9E5
1. This is for both prj.conf, sysbuild.conf
I created a sysbuild folder where I created the files mcuboot.conf and mcuboot.overlay and pasted the respective components from L9E3 sysbuild/mcuboot.conf and sysbuild/mcuboot_mx.overlay into these files
I looked through the main files of the L9E3 and copied the lacking code (which was basically just some optional LED stuff) and pasted into my application

Now for where this is documented:

If I were to follow the same steps only using the documentation and not the academy exercises this is how I would've done it (which is easy to say for me since I know where to look in the docs):

I would've chosen a BLE sample such as the peripheral_lbs sample that you chose because that is a relatively minimal sample that sets up BLE and advertising. Alternatively I would've used the smp server sample, which is mentioned in the quick start guide found under 2c below (which also mentions the academy pages)
At https://docs.nordicsemi.com/bundle/ncs-latest/page/nrf/app_dev.html I would've looked at
From here I would've had a look at the working with 54L and "FOTA updates...." page https://docs.nordicsemi.com/bundle/ncs-latest/page/nrf/app_dev/device_guides/nrf54l/fota_update.html and followed the steps here
W.r.t using the external flash partitioning I would've followed the steps here https://docs.nordicsemi.com/bundle/ncs-latest/page/nrf/app_dev/bootloaders_dfu/mcuboot_nsib/bootloader_partitioning.html#using_external_flash_memory_partitions which takes you to the generic partition manager script here https://docs.nordicsemi.com/bundle/ncs-latest/page/nrf/scripts/partition_manager/partition_manager.html#pm-external-flash with an example of how to set up the mx25 for qspi for the nRF5340
1. Question now becomes how to set up the external flash for SPI instead of QSPI, which you would have to either find a solution for by examining samples with this support for either the nRF9160/61 or the nRF54L15 which both has SPI set up to communicate with the external flash and copy that implementation

But this leaves us with the troublesome part; this is a lot of work and with no sample reference you may spend quite a bit of time going through these docs without any finding anything explicitly mentioning "FOTA with external flash for the nRF54L15".

TLDR I can completely understand the struggles with finding the correct documentation if you don't know where to look/don't find the academy pages immediately!...

Edit: PS I saw your latest comment after posting this. Will reply shortly

Kind regards,
Andreas

RE: nrf54L15, mx24r64 and FOTA

Jasper_Golden — Thu, 10 Jul 2025 10:16:17 GMT

Hello again Andreas.

I had high hopes .... Opened your file and tried to build.

devzone.nordicsemi.com/.../errors.txt

The missing node issue in this case is ..

/* Node's dependency ordinal: */
#define DT_N_S_soc_S_qspi_40029000_S_mx25r6435f_0_ORD 131
#define DT_N_S_soc_S_qspi_40029000_S_mx25r6435f_0_ORD_STR_SORTABLE 00131

Not sure if I am now not defining something in the build table.

Thank You

Brian

RE: nrf54L15, mx24r64 and FOTA

Jasper_Golden — Thu, 10 Jul 2025 09:02:01 GMT

Hello Andreas

" let me know if you're able to spot any differences"

You kidding right (LOL)... cheezzz .. a lot different. So my first thought is .. is this kind of detail referenced anywhere? Clearly the examples I have been working through has not covered this level of detail. I will work through it to gain understanding and if all good, translate it to the main project I am working on. Thank you for taking the time and energy to provide the zip.

Will provide feedback on the results a little later.

Brian

RE: nrf54L15, mx24r64 and FOTA

AHaug — Thu, 10 Jul 2025 08:44:04 GMT

Hi again,

I've had a brief look through your zip and I've created a sample for you that compiles, builds and flashes (tested on nrf54l15dk/nrf54l15/cpuapp)

Sample goes through the booting process and starts advertising as expected

And the partition manager sets up the secondary mcuboot partition for the update image on the SPI connected external flash device:

Please compare this sample to your solution and let me know if you're able to spot any differences between this zip and your project

devzone.nordicsemi.com/.../7_5F00_54l15_5F00_fota_5F00_ext.zip

Kind regards,
Andreas

RE: nrf54L15, mx24r64 and FOTA

AHaug — Wed, 09 Jul 2025 13:51:36 GMT

Noted, thank you for clarifying

I will look into the zip tomorrow (10th of July) and get back to you with (hopefully) something more constructive then

Kind regards,
Andreas

RE: nrf54L15, mx24r64 and FOTA

Jasper_Golden — Wed, 09 Jul 2025 12:47:10 GMT

Hi Andreas.

The Ezerio point is of no concern ... board selected is a standard Nordic board as per pic sent. The compile fails, so not even able to program the board.

The zip file is a basic project downloaded via the new project/copy a sample. Then changes added as per the tutorials found. Chances are that I have missed something.

Thank you

Brian

devzone.nordicsemi.com/.../1200.peripheral_5F00_lbs_5F00_1.zip

RE: nrf54L15, mx24r64 and FOTA

AHaug — Wed, 09 Jul 2025 11:54:25 GMT

Hi,

Could you attach the full build log in a .txt here? I'm curious to see if the board file you mention are being picked up since you mention that you're using the Ezerio 54l15 kit

Could you also zip a somewhat minimal project that I can have a look at and compare with the solution I have for the nRF54L15DK?

Kind regards,
Andreas

RE: nrf54L15, mx24r64 and FOTA

Jasper_Golden — Tue, 08 Jul 2025 14:09:05 GMT

Hello Andreas .. once again, thank you for your support here.

I can confirm that 117 refers to the SPI Node as referenced in 3 places in file you pointed me to.

----------------------------------------------------------------
117 /soc/peripheral@50000000/spi@4a000/mx25r6435f@0

/* Ordinals for what depends directly on this node: */
#define DT_N_S_soc_S_peripheral_50000000_S_spi_4a000_SUPPORTS_ORDS \
117, /* /soc/peripheral@50000000/spi@4a000/mx25r6435f@0 */

/* Node's dependency ordinal: */
#define DT_N_S_soc_S_peripheral_50000000_S_spi_4a000_S_mx25r6435f_0_ORD 117
#define DT_N_S_soc_S_peripheral_50000000_S_spi_4a000_S_mx25r6435f_0_ORD_STR_SORTABLE 00117
----------------------------------------------------------------

Tried adding mx25r64: mx25r6435f@0 {...........} node to overlay files .. did not help.

Thank You
Brian

RE: nrf54L15, mx24r64 and FOTA

AHaug — Tue, 08 Jul 2025 13:10:59 GMT

Aha, thank you for sharing. The webinars are great for that specific setup shown in the video/session, but they have a unfortunate side effect of not being too generic and easy to adapt. The academy pages are maintained atleast for every major release of the SDK so they should be up to date and work out of the box.

[quote user="Jasper_Golden"]but its difficult and confusing for a Nordic beginner to make sene of it all. [/quote]

I can understand this. There's a lot to grasp w.r.t Zephyr and NCS so the learning curve is unfortunately steep. If I would've given myself a "golden path" that I should follow if I had to start over again I would've said that the best approach is to go methodically through the academy courses, at least the following:

Decide which SDK version you're working with. For instance if you're not going to use sysbuild, you will have to stick with NCS v2.6.x. If it doesn't really matter, start with the latest tagged release (currently NCS v3.0.2)
Fundamentals NCS lesson 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5
Intermediate NCS lesson 1, 2, 3, 8, and 9 and then maybe 7
Any other lesson that contains peripherals that you will be using within these courses
BLE fundamentals if you intend to have something BLE related on your application,

[quote user="Jasper_Golden"]c:/ncs/toolchains/0b393f9e1b/opt/zephyr-sdk/arm-zephyr-eabi/bin/../lib/gcc/arm-zephyr-eabi/12.2.0/../../../../arm-zephyr-eabi/bin/ld.bfd.exe: zephyr/libzephyr.a(flash_map_partition_manager.c.obj):(.rodata.default_flash_map+0x1c): undefined reference to `__device_dts_ord_117'[/quote]

Lesson 2 in the intermediate course would point you to how to debug this, i.e https://academy.nordicsemi.com/courses/nrf-connect-sdk-intermediate/lessons/lesson-2-debugging/topic/troubleshooting-the-devicetree/ and https://academy.nordicsemi.com/courses/nrf-connect-sdk-intermediate/lessons/lesson-2-debugging/topic/exercise-3/

You can find which peripheral it is complaining about by going to build/<bootloader/zephyr/include/generated/zephyr/devicetree_generated.h and find the ID found in the error message.

I'm guessing that what it's compl

aining about is the SPI peripheral, but I could be wrong. Could you check this file and see what it complains about?

[quote user="Jasper_Golden"]Out of interest, if I leave out SB_CONFIG_PM_EXTERNAL_FLASH_MCUBOOT_SECONDARY=y, the entire project will compile, but when board is programmed, the app fails to run.[/quote]

Without this configuration you will have a situation where you have an external flash set up and some of your companion images may or may not expect the secondary image to reside there, but you have not compiled MCUboot to use partition manager to state that the update image and thus the secondary partition should reside on the external flash.

Kind regards,
Andreas

RE: nrf54L15, mx24r64 and FOTA

Jasper_Golden — Tue, 08 Jul 2025 10:37:56 GMT

Andreas ..Thank you for taking the time to respond. Much appreciated.

I have been mainly following this youtube video by Nordic .. www.youtube.com/watch
In addition, I have searched through many material looking for clues, but its difficult and confusing for a Nordic beginner to make sene of it all. A lot to take in and also to miss.
Never the less, your comment are certainly helpful and some progress made, but also a step back that hopefully is simple to remedy.

Changes made:

Created a directory sysbuild.
Inside sysbuild, created file mcuboot.conf and mcuboot.overlay

mcuboot.conf has only ..
CONFIG_GPIO=y
CONFIG_NORDIC_QSPI_NOR=y

mcuboot.overlay has only..

&mx25r64 {
status = "okay";
};

/ {
chosen {
nordic,pm-ext-flash = &mx25r64;
};
};

Then in sysbuild.conf, I comment out
#SB_CONFIG_PARTITION_MANAGER=y
and added
SB_CONFIG_PM_EXTERNAL_FLASH_MCUBOOT_SECONDARY=y
# Step 3.1 - For SPI, we need to set this
SB_CONFIG_PM_OVERRIDE_EXTERNAL_DRIVER_CHECK=y

This in accordance to Exercise 3: DFU with External Flash

The moment I add SB_CONFIG_PM_EXTERNAL_FLASH_MCUBOOT_SECONDARY=y

the mcuboot complile section fails with

c:/ncs/toolchains/0b393f9e1b/opt/zephyr-sdk/arm-zephyr-eabi/bin/../lib/gcc/arm-zephyr-eabi/12.2.0/../../../../arm-zephyr-eabi/bin/ld.bfd.exe: zephyr/libzephyr.a(flash_map_partition_manager.c.obj):(.rodata.default_flash_map+0x1c): undefined reference to `__device_dts_ord_117'

The memory map does look better and it is showing up the second boot image in Flash.. so thats good.
Out of interest, if I leave out SB_CONFIG_PM_EXTERNAL_FLASH_MCUBOOT_SECONDARY=y, the entire project will compile, but when board is programmed, the app fails to run.

RE: nrf54L15, mx24r64 and FOTA

AHaug — Mon, 07 Jul 2025 17:02:45 GMT

Hello,

[quote user=""]So firstly, the elephant in the room … why is there no example for FOTA using the external flash memory and the 54L part?[/quote]

In general there are samples, but most of the samples showcasing FOTA in NCS also showcases (mainly) other things.

[quote user=""]The main problem is that existing materials appear incompatible with the 54L range of parts, so following guides and dev academy materials proved somewhat frustrating.[/quote]

You also mention the academy pages, but I'm not certain which courses you've gone through. Both the fundamentals and intermediary course (as well as the BLE fundamentals course) have support for the nRF54L15DK, so could you describe closer which parts that you're having issues with w.r.t compatability?

[quote user=""]So firstly, the elephant in the room … why is there no example for FOTA using the external flash memory and the 54L part?[/quote]

Based on your configurations it seems to me that you've been following https://academy.nordicsemi.com/courses/nrf-connect-sdk-intermediate/lessons/lesson-9-bootloaders-and-dfu-fota/ to some extent at least. The reason for why the https://academy.nordicsemi.com/courses/nrf-connect-sdk-intermediate/lessons/lesson-9-bootloaders-and-dfu-fota/topic/exercise-5-fota-over-bluetooth-low-energy/ does not contain an external flash is because for the purpose of the academy courses we keep the samples as minimal as we can. This means that users will have to merge the exercise 3 containing steps for how to configure the external flash for DFU with the transport for FOTA that the user chooses. The only exception is the simultaneous DFU for the nRF5340 which requires external flash to work (mentioned at the bottom of Exercise 5).

This brings me to the reason for why your update image is not being loaded to the external flash; you're missing some configurations from exercise 3, which you can see here: https://github.com/NordicDeveloperAcademy/ncs-inter/blob/main/l9/l9_e3_sol/spi/sysbuild.conf, more specifically in steps 1-3 in https://academy.nordicsemi.com/courses/nrf-connect-sdk-intermediate/lessons/lesson-9-bootloaders-and-dfu-fota/topic/exercise-3-dfu-with-external-flash/ (select the SPI tab whenever you can for the nrf54L15

[quote user=""]This is where there is so much conflicting information on how to configure the flash for a 54L device and how to partition. Is the partition manager instruction applicable the 54 device?[/quote]

Could you point me to the conflicting information so I can bring the feedback to the authors and/or help you clarify any misunderstandings?

Let me know if this clarifies the uncertainties for you.

Kind regards,
Andreas