hex files no longer generated after upgrading SDK versions

Will_20241202 1 month ago

In the process of upgrading from SDKs 2.x to 3.x I either broke something or missed a step as the build process no longer produces a HEX file I can use for programming. My old, working build log ended with

[374/383] Linking C executable zephyr\zephyr.elf
Memory region         Used Size  Region Size  %age Used
           FLASH:      200748 B     245248 B     81.86%
             RAM:       57920 B        64 KB     88.38%
        IDT_LIST:          0 GB        32 KB      0.00%
Generating files from C:/<REDACTED>/zephyr/zephyr.elf for board: <REDACTED>
[374/383] Generating zephyr/mcuboot_primary.hex
[374/383] Generating zephyr/mcuboot_primary_app.hex
[375/383] Completed 'mcuboot_subimage'
[377/383] Generating ../../zephyr/app_signed.hex
[377/383] Generating ../../zephyr/app_update.bin
[378/383] Generating ../../zephyr/app_signed.hex
image.py: sign the payload
[379/383] Generating ../../zephyr/app_update.bin
image.py: sign the payload
[379/383] Generating ../../zephyr/app_test_update.hex
[379/383] Generating ../../zephyr/dfu_application.zip
[380/383] Generating ../../zephyr/dfu_application.zip
[381/383] Generating ../../zephyr/app_test_update.hex
image.py: sign the payload
[381/383] Generating ../../zephyr/app_moved_test_update.hex
[382/383] Generating zephyr/merged.hex
[383/383] Generating zephyr/merged.hex
 *  Terminal will be reused by tasks, press any key to close it.

but my new one ends with

[384/384] Linking C executable zephyr\zephyr.elf
Memory region         Used Size  Region Size  %age Used
           FLASH:      187680 B       512 KB     35.80%
             RAM:       55792 B        64 KB     85.13%
        IDT_LIST:          0 GB        32 KB      0.00%
Generating files from D:/<REDACTED>/zephyr/zephyr.elf for board: <REDACTED>
[6/8] No install step for <REDACTED>
[7/8] Completed <REDACTED>
[8/8] Completed <REDACTED>
 *  Terminal will be reused by tasks, press any key to close it.

To be clear, this is not just that output locations have moved now that I'm using sysbuild (as the AI tool suggests). There are _NO_ hex files anywhere in the project directory after the build completes.

How do I repair this for a 3.2.3 SDK/toolchain?

Parents

0 Amanda Hsieh 1 month ago

Hi Will,

See Output build files (image files) for the output files.

I think you are working with DFU, so you can take a look at the DevAcademy courses:

Lesson 8 – Sysbuild

Lesson 9 – Bootloaders and DFU/FOTA

Hope this Migrating from multi-image builds to sysbuild can help.

Regards,
Amanda H.
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0 Amanda Hsieh 1 month ago

Hi Will,

See Output build files (image files) for the output files.

I think you are working with DFU, so you can take a look at the DevAcademy courses:

Lesson 8 – Sysbuild

Lesson 9 – Bootloaders and DFU/FOTA

Hope this Migrating from multi-image builds to sysbuild can help.

Regards,
Amanda H.
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0 Will_20241202 1 month ago in reply to Amanda Hsieh

Amanda,

The first link above indicates that there should be several .hex and .bin files generated as part of the build process. Doing an exhaustive, recursive search in the project directory (including the build subdirectory) reveals that there are no files with a .hex or .bin extension on disk even though there were no errors during the build process.

Using the older SDK I would have

<project dir>\<build dir>\mcuboot\zephyr\zephyr.hex
<project dir>\<build dir>\zephyr\app_moved_test_update.hex
<project dir>\<build dir>\zephyr\app_signed.hex
<project dir>\<build dir>\zephyr\app_test_update.hex
<project dir>\<build dir>\zephyr\mcuboot_primary.hex
<project dir>\<build dir>\zephyr\mcuboot_primary_app.hex
<project dir>\<build dir>\zephyr\merged.hex
<project dir>\<build dir>\zephyr\zephyr.hex
<project dir>\<build dir>\mcuboot\zephyr\zephyr.bin
<project dir>\<build dir>\zephyr\app_to_sign.bin
<project dir>\<build dir>\zephyr\app_update.bin
<project dir>\<build dir>\zephyr\zephyr.bin

0 Amanda Hsieh 1 month ago in reply to Will_20241202

Could you check the build/<your_application_name>/zephyr directory?
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0 Will_20241202 1 month ago in reply to Amanda Hsieh

Currently there is no "build" directory as I am trying to build against multiple targets so I specified unique names in the configurations.

The contents of the zephyr directory inside the project directory inside the build directory are below. There are .elf files but no .hex or .bin files.

 Directory of <PROJECT_DIR>\<BUILD_DIR>\<PROJECT_NAME>\zephyr

03/12/2026  02:14 PM    <DIR>          .
03/12/2026  02:13 PM    <DIR>          ..
03/12/2026  02:13 PM           139,712 .cmake.dotconfig.checksum
03/12/2026  02:13 PM            73,366 .config
03/12/2026  02:12 PM               263 .config.sysbuild
03/12/2026  02:13 PM    <DIR>          arch
03/12/2026  02:13 PM    <DIR>          boards
03/12/2026  02:13 PM    <DIR>          cmake
03/12/2026  02:13 PM    <DIR>          CMakeFiles
03/12/2026  02:13 PM            11,095 cmake_install.cmake
03/12/2026  02:13 PM    <DIR>          drivers
03/12/2026  02:13 PM           873,557 edt.pickle
03/12/2026  02:13 PM           107,034 edt.pickle.cmake
03/12/2026  02:13 PM           107,034 edt.pickle.cmake.new
03/12/2026  02:13 PM    <DIR>          include
03/12/2026  02:14 PM             3,536 isr_tables.c
03/12/2026  02:14 PM                13 isr_tables_swi.ld
03/12/2026  02:14 PM                13 isr_tables_vt.ld
03/12/2026  02:13 PM    <DIR>          kconfig
03/12/2026  02:14 PM    <DIR>          kernel
03/12/2026  02:13 PM    <DIR>          lib
03/12/2026  02:14 PM           738,096 libzephyr.a
03/12/2026  02:14 PM            28,037 linker.cmd
03/12/2026  02:14 PM             6,039 linker.cmd.dep
03/12/2026  02:13 PM            28,047 linker_zephyr_pre0.cmd
03/12/2026  02:13 PM             6,051 linker_zephyr_pre0.cmd.dep
03/12/2026  02:13 PM    <DIR>          misc
03/12/2026  02:13 PM             1,107 runners.yaml
03/12/2026  02:13 PM             5,659 snippets_generated.cmake
03/12/2026  02:13 PM    <DIR>          soc
03/12/2026  02:13 PM    <DIR>          subsys
03/12/2026  02:13 PM            12,913 syscall_weakdefs_llext.c
03/12/2026  02:13 PM            41,761 zephyr.dts
03/12/2026  02:13 PM             1,853 zephyr.dts.d
03/12/2026  02:13 PM            18,236 zephyr.dts.pre
03/12/2026  02:14 PM         3,782,196 zephyr.elf
03/12/2026  02:14 PM         1,156,896 zephyr.map
03/12/2026  02:14 PM             6,205 zephyr.stat
03/12/2026  02:14 PM         1,156,896 zephyr_final.map
03/12/2026  02:14 PM         3,783,052 zephyr_pre0.elf
03/12/2026  02:14 PM         1,158,042 zephyr_pre0.map
              27 File(s)     13,246,709 bytes
              14 Dir(s)  1,684,245,233,664 bytes free

It seems the final step of converting .elf files into .hex files is broken or missing, and I'm not sure how to fix it. Everything I've found online suggests that it should happen automatically, and yet...