BLE FOTA + OpenThread Integration Issues: Advertising Error, IPC Timeout, and SMP Overflow

[Lavanya_Manohar]

Hi Nordic Team,

We are working on an OpenThread+BLE with BLE DFU based application in NRF 5340. With that BLE and OpenThread Application are running successfully on the application core.

But we are facing issues in compilation & run time error whenever adding BLE FOTA configurations using multiprotocol_rpmsg.conf in Net Core.

Find the error log given below

Run Time error:

1. We have encountered the following error during BLE SDK 2.6.1:

[00:00:00.534,973] <err> bt_gatt: Unable to register handle 0x001b
[00:00:00.535,400] <wrn> bt_hci_core: opcode 0x2006 status 0x01
[00:00:00.535,400] <err> BleProvisioner: Advertising failed to start (err -5)

We have verified that BLE and OpenThread coexist correctly, but advertising consistently fails with error -5. Could this be related to GATT registration limits or HCI command conflicts?

Additionally, we are facing the following issues:

2. IPC Timeout in BLE FOTA Example:

• Using the l9/l9_e5_sol in ncs-inter build from SDK v3.1.0.

• When integrating OpenThread on the application core, we encounter IPC timeout errors during initialization.

• Is there a recommended sequence or configuration to enable OpenThread alongside BLE FOTA to avoid IPC timeouts?
  
  

Compilation Error

1. Overflow with smp_bt_config() on Netcore BLE Setup in SDK NRF3.1.0 :

• In our main project, we configure BLE on the network core using multiprotocol_rpmsg.conf and hci_rpmsg.conf.

• When integrating smp_bt_config(), we encounter a 2KB overflow.

• Could you provide guidance on optimizing memory layout or reducing the BLE stack footprint in this setup?
  
  

We are in a critical situation, as this is blocking our production. We kindly request your guidance and solutions for the issues mentioned above.

We would appreciate any guidance or recommended configurations for these scenarios. We are happy to share additional logs, configuration files, or build details if needed.

Thank you for your support.

[Amanda Hsieh]

I would suggest considering DFU with an external flash. Check out this Devacademy course https://academy.nordicsemi.com/courses/nrf-connect-sdk-intermediate/lessons/lesson-9-bootloaders-and-dfu-fota/topic/exercise-3-dfu-with-external-flash/ 

[Shanmugam]

Our application requires DFU over FOTA. There is no available option for performing DFU over UART or using external flash.

[Amanda Hsieh]

Since the application with BLE and OpenThread would cause the image to be larger and BLE DFU requires a dual bank to update, you could consider reducing the image size (see Memory footprint optimization) or using an external flash for BLE DFU.