nRF52840 Dongle BLE issue

[Adnan Ashraf]

Hi,

I'm trying to program the nRF52840 Dongle (PCA10059, 2.1.1, 2023.26). I modified the Bluetooth: Central UART sample to use USB instead of UART and built it for the dongle (nrf52840dongle/nrf52840) using nRF Connect SDK 3.1.1 and Toolchain 3.1.1.

I program the dongle using nRF Connect for Desktop Programmer app, putting it into bootloader mode by pressing the reset button and then writing the generated build\merged.hex file.

After programming, other parts of the application work as expected, but BLE does not, the application appears to hang at bt_enable().

Do I need to program a BLE SoftDevice separately, or am I missing some board-specific configuration to enable Bluetooth on the dongle? Is programming via the USB bootloader + Programmer sufficient for BLE applications, or should a different flashing method be used? Any guidance or pointers would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Best,
Adnan

[Hung Bui]

Hi Adnan, 
I assume you selected the nRF52840 dongle as the board when you build the application. 

Have you tried with a 2nd dongle or other sample, for example peripheral_lbs ? 

What you described should be sufficient to run an BLE application (compile with nRF52840 dongle and flash using the USB bootloader mode )

[Adnan Ashraf]

Hi Hung,

Thank you for your response.

Yes, I confirmed that the application is built with the nrf52840dongle/nrf52840 board target.

I have not tried a second dongle yet. However, the same dongle works correctly when programmed via the nRF Connect for Desktop Bluetooth Low Energy app, which suggests that the BLE hardware itself is functioning properly.

I have now also tested the peripheral_lbs sample, and I'm seeing the same behavior that BLE does not start and the application appears to stall at bt_enable(). This occurs with both NCS 3.1.1 / Toolchain 3.1.1 and NCS 3.2.0 / Toolchain 3.2.0.

Thanks again for your help.

Best,
Adnan

[Hung Bui]

Hi Adnan, 

I think I found what's wrong. You can find the explanation from Vidar in this ticket:  nRF52840 dongle, BLE peripheral_uart example, SDK migration from 2.6.0 to 2.9.0 

Basically you need to add a pm_static.yml file into your project (if you only compile it for the dongle) due to the settings storage is at the same location as the bootloader on the dongle, by default. 

https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/cfs-file/__key/communityserver-discussions-components-files/4/0652.pm_5F00_static.yml

[Adnan Ashraf]

Hi Hung,

Thank you very much for the solution, it worked flawlessly.

Just to add some additional context for others, if the application is intended to run on multiple boards, a sysbuild.cmake file can be used (as mentioned in the linked post) to apply the pm_static.yml only for the nRF52840 dongle. For example:

if(SB_CONFIG_BOARD_NRF52840DONGLE)
  set(PM_STATIC_YML_FILE ${CMAKE_CURRENT_LIST_DIR}/boards/nrf52840dongle_nrf52840_pm_static.yml CACHE INTERNAL "")
endif()

Thanks again for the help.

Best,
Adnan