Build fails when enabling SQSPI in Device Tree (with MCUBoot)

RE: Build fails when enabling SQSPI in Device Tree (with MCUBoot)

Ghazi-Faisal — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 05:40:50 GMT

It worked. Thanks

RE: Build fails when enabling SQSPI in Device Tree (with MCUBoot)

Vidar Berg — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 14:05:36 GMT

Hi,

Your custom_nrf54l1_cpuapp.dts is enabling the sQSPI by default, which means that it gets enabled in MCUBoot as well. I suggest you change the status to "disabled", then add a Devictree overlay for your application that sets it to "okay".

RE: Build fails when enabling SQSPI in Device Tree (with MCUBoot)

Ghazi-Faisal — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 11:13:53 GMT

Hi Vidar,
I’ve been modifying the code and testing different sections from my main code to identify what’s causing the compilation issue. I was able to reproduce the problem when using a custom DTS. Please check the code below.

devzone.nordicsemi.com/.../8738.littlefs.zip

RE: Build fails when enabling SQSPI in Device Tree (with MCUBoot)

Vidar Berg — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 12:49:22 GMT

Hi,

You stated earlier that you only wanted to use sQSPI for the littlefs partition so whether you are supporting FOTA or not in the app should not matter.

RE: Build fails when enabling SQSPI in Device Tree (with MCUBoot)

Ghazi-Faisal — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 12:42:13 GMT

Hi Vidar,

I got tied up with other work over the past two weeks.

The sample you shared doesn’t seem to match the scenario I’m encountering. My OTA implementationis based on BLE SMP service.

If you happen to have a sample for OTA over BLE where SQSPI is implemented, could you please share it? That would likely be faster than me building a minimal example from scratch to reproduce the issue.

RE: Build fails when enabling SQSPI in Device Tree (with MCUBoot)

Vidar Berg — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 11:27:11 GMT

We were posting in parallel, please see my previous reply.

RE: Build fails when enabling SQSPI in Device Tree (with MCUBoot)

Vidar Berg — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 11:26:13 GMT

I configured the littlefs sample to use sQSPI and to include MCUBoot, but did not manage to reproduce the problem here.

Memory layout

Log output

[quote user="Ghazi-Faisal"]The errors I posted at the beginning of this thread were for SQSPI being enabled only in the application, not in the bootloader.[/quote]

I'm not sure what caused it, but the errors show the sQSPI being enabled in the bootloader.

Attached below is the modified sample I used for test. Please try it on your side to see if it works on your end as well.

devzone.nordicsemi.com/.../8054.littlefs.zip

RE: Build fails when enabling SQSPI in Device Tree (with MCUBoot)

Ghazi-Faisal — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 11:25:21 GMT

is there a sample with OTA over ble in which I can test my implementation?

RE: Build fails when enabling SQSPI in Device Tree (with MCUBoot)

Ghazi-Faisal — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 08:12:07 GMT

Sorry for the misunderstanding.

The errors I posted at the beginning of this thread were for SQSPI being enabled only in the application, not in the bootloader.

The errors started showing only after adding SQSPI to the main application. Before that, OTA was working just fine.

RE: Build fails when enabling SQSPI in Device Tree (with MCUBoot)

Vidar Berg — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 07:17:19 GMT

So you want to keep the secondary slot in internal memory? Everything I have answered so far has been based on the impression that you wanted to use sQSPI in the bootloader to access FW updates staged in external flash. If you don't need this, then you should not be enabling MSPI or sQSPI in the bootloader as the build errors in your initial post show.

RE: Build fails when enabling SQSPI in Device Tree (with MCUBoot)

Ghazi-Faisal — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 07:02:33 GMT

I think I may not have explained my case clearly.

In main application, I am using the entire external flash for data recording purposes.

However, after enabling MCUBoot, it now reserves a portion of the external flash for the secondary image slot. Because of this, the external flash is no longer fully available to my application.

As a result, the build fails when I try to enable SQSPI in the device tree, since there is now a conflict between the flash area used by MCUBoot and the one expected by my application.

Could you please advise how I can resolve this?

I have attached the modified sample code for your reference
devzone.nordicsemi.com/.../1108.smp_5F00_svr.zip

RE: Build fails when enabling SQSPI in Device Tree (with MCUBoot)

Vidar Berg — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 12:27:08 GMT

Are you enabling the symbol below in your sysbuild.conf file?

(https://docs.nordicsemi.com/bundle/ncs-latest/page/nrf/releases_and_maturity/migration/migration_sysbuild.html)

RE: Build fails when enabling SQSPI in Device Tree (with MCUBoot)

Ghazi-Faisal — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 11:21:07 GMT

Thanks. This worked with the sample.

However, in my main code the external flash is completely occupied by LittleFS, and slot0 and slot1 are being placed in internal flash.

In the sample, slot1 uses external flash, which creates an inconsistency between MCUboot and the main app in my case. This is happening because MCUboot is taking a large portion of the internal flash.

Is there a way to fix this?

For reference, I am using these flags to create a LittleFS partition on external flash (still based on the same sample).

CONFIG_FLASH=y
CONFIG_FLASH_MAP=y
CONFIG_FILE_SYSTEM=y
CONFIG_FILE_SYSTEM_LITTLEFS=y

CONFIG_SPI=y
CONFIG_NORDIC_QSPI_NOR=y

CONFIG_PM_PARTITION_REGION_LITTLEFS_EXTERNAL=y
CONFIG_PM_PARTITION_SIZE_LITTLEFS=0x800000

CONFIG_FS_LITTLEFS_CACHE_SIZE=4096
CONFIG_FS_LITTLEFS_LOOKAHEAD_SIZE=256

RE: Build fails when enabling SQSPI in Device Tree (with MCUBoot)

Vidar Berg — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 07:51:07 GMT

Thanks for confirming. Are you using the nrf54l15dk as your build target (i.e. nrf54l15dk/nrf54l15/cpuapp), and does your board include the optional 32KHz crystal? If not, have you made sure to change the default LF clock source in the bootloader as well as in the application?

RE: Build fails when enabling SQSPI in Device Tree (with MCUBoot)

Ghazi-Faisal — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 07:48:45 GMT

both samples given are sQSPI sample.
sQSPI is working on my pcb with the flash. I verified this by writing and reading and I was able to write across the full flash size

RE: Build fails when enabling SQSPI in Device Tree (with MCUBoot)

Vidar Berg — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 07:29:57 GMT

No worries. But I somehow missed your comment about using a custom board , I have just been assuming that you were testing on a nRF54l15 DK.

Before trying to use sQSPI with the bootloader, did you verify that you were able to interface with your SPI flash on your board? You can use the /nrf/samples/zephyr/drivers/spi_flash/ or nrf/samples/zephyr/drivers/jesd216/ sample for this.

RE: Build fails when enabling SQSPI in Device Tree (with MCUBoot)

Ghazi-Faisal — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 05:00:30 GMT

Sorry for the delayed response — I was out of office the past 3 days.

I’m using a SEGGER J-Link debugger with the nRF Connect SDK VS Code extension, and I’m viewing logs through the RTT Viewer tool (not the Espressif extension). Since this is a custom board, I don’t have access to UART, which is why I tried enabling RTT logging

RE: Build fails when enabling SQSPI in Device Tree (with MCUBoot)

Vidar Berg — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 07:21:37 GMT

It looks like you are using an extension from espressif for debugging? Did you check the uart terminal outputs too?

RE: Build fails when enabling SQSPI in Device Tree (with MCUBoot)

Ghazi-Faisal — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 13:10:23 GMT

[quote userid="4240" url="~/f/nordic-q-a/127060/build-fails-when-enabling-sqspi-in-device-tree-with-mcuboot/561595"]If you start the debugger and pause the execution, where does it hang?[/quote]

the moment debugging start it stops on line 135 on file below. if I resume, pause button doesn't respond after that

RE: Build fails when enabling SQSPI in Device Tree (with MCUBoot)

Ghazi-Faisal — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 13:00:27 GMT

but I am on a custom board and can't access uart

RE: Build fails when enabling SQSPI in Device Tree (with MCUBoot)

Vidar Berg — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 12:43:26 GMT

If you start the debugger and pause the execution, where does it hang?

[quote userid="149857" url="~/f/nordic-q-a/127060/build-fails-when-enabling-sqspi-in-device-tree-with-mcuboot/561593"]even after adding rtt logs flags mcuboot conf file [/quote]

It has logging over UART enabled by default, please keep that and don't enable RTT.

RE: Build fails when enabling SQSPI in Device Tree (with MCUBoot)

Ghazi-Faisal — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 12:39:16 GMT

I have followed the steps but I still can't see anything
even after adding rtt logs flags mcuboot conf file

sysbuild/mcuboot/boards/nrf54l15dk_nrf54l15_cpuapp_ext_flash_sqspi.conf

RE: Build fails when enabling SQSPI in Device Tree (with MCUBoot)

Vidar Berg — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 11:37:02 GMT

I got a linker error when I tried to build it at first because the bootloader area was too small. Did you specify the "ext_flas_sqspi" to select the sQSPI overlays?

RE: Build fails when enabling SQSPI in Device Tree (with MCUBoot)

Ghazi-Faisal — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 09:51:04 GMT

I’m using the sample from this PR: https://github.com/nrfconnect/sdk-nrf/pull/27046

I tried reading logs using J-Link, but I don’t see any output. I also attempted to debug with J-Link, and it looks like the code isn’t even reaching the main() function.

I’ve attached my project with this response — could you please take a look and help identify what might be wrong?

devzone.nordicsemi.com/.../6433.smp_5F00_svr.zip

RE: Build fails when enabling SQSPI in Device Tree (with MCUBoot)

Vidar Berg — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 06:36:20 GMT

I'm not sure which sample you are using. Anyway, to debug, please check logs from bootloader, or attach debugger to find out where the program hangs/reboots.