SPIM00 Failed to initialize nrfx driver: 0bad0004 on NRF54L15-DK

RE: SPIM00 Failed to initialize nrfx driver: 0bad0004 on NRF54L15-DK

Den Engineer — Wed, 29 Oct 2025 19:48:48 GMT

Whoa, thanks a ton Zeki.Fan , you just save me from hours of debugging likely 😄

Einar Thorsrud should that be added somewhere for SPI00 docs or maybe in the error message that the minimal frequency wasn't met for driver to be initialized? Since it's not the most straightforward thing to figure out and that could save quite some time to ppl using SPI00 for SD cards

RE: SPIM00 Failed to initialize nrfx driver: 0bad0004 on NRF54L15-DK

Zeki.Fan — Wed, 29 Oct 2025 10:54:01 GMT

I also have the same problem, I am trying to debug it. I found that sd_init_io() first attempts to initialize the SD card with a frequency of 400KHz, it is too slow for spi00! I have modified the definition of 'SDMMC_CLOCK_400KHZ' to 2Mhz and it is now working。：）

RE: SPIM00 Failed to initialize nrfx driver: 0bad0004 on NRF54L15-DK

Einar Thorsrud — Wed, 29 Oct 2025 09:14:13 GMT

Hi,

That is a good point. The error code 0x0bad0004 is NRFX_ERROR_INVALID_PARAM and comes from this call to nrfx_spim_init(). I expect the check that fails is the frequency check here? Which frequency are you configuring now? Note the limitation of SPIM00 frequency due to the prescaler. I also see that I rounded off the frequency in my previous reply to 1 MHz, but the minimum is slightly higher (or rather 128 MHz / 126). See the Configuration in the SPIM chapter in the datasheet for details.

RE: SPIM00 Failed to initialize nrfx driver: 0bad0004 on NRF54L15-DK

Den Engineer — Mon, 27 Oct 2025 19:13:21 GMT

Unfortunately that did not change much - I still have "spi_nrfx_spim: Failed to initialize nrfx driver: 0bad0004" which I believe happens even before any messages are sent to the card, which means likely a driver software problem Einar Thorsrud

RE: SPIM00 Failed to initialize nrfx driver: 0bad0004 on NRF54L15-DK

Den Engineer — Mon, 27 Oct 2025 19:01:44 GMT

Thanks, great insight on compliance! Will try to add E0/E1 as you've described it instead of my contraption and report back.

RE: SPIM00 Failed to initialize nrfx driver: 0bad0004 on NRF54L15-DK

Einar Thorsrud — Mon, 27 Oct 2025 13:04:59 GMT

Hi,

SPIM00 has to be used with dedicated pins, but that seems to be in order here. another point is to enable the correct drive strength (E0/E1) in the device tree with "nordic,drive-mode = <NRF_DRIVE_E0E1>;" as shown here, then the driver will configure the drive strength properly.

Another issue is that SD cards should start with a low clock frequency first, and then move to a higher frequency. However, the SPI00 clock cannot go lower than 1 MHz (or rather 128 MHz / 126). So it will not be possible to initiate communication with a SD card in a complient way using SPIM00. It coudl work though and most likely this is not an issue, but you should be ware of it (particularily if the end user could potentially insert an old/low performing SD card that cannot handle higher frequencies).