nRF51 DK soft devices examples not working

[joe]

Hi,

I have an nRF51 DK, found here www.nordicsemi.com/.../nRF51-DK. I am using SDK V11.0 and S130 V2.0. I am developing on a Linux machine.

I can compile and run the blinky example successfully with the commands below:

cd /home/joe/Tools/nRF5/tools/nRF5_SDK_11.0.0_89a8197/examples/peripheral/blinky/pca10028/blank/armgcc
make
cd _build
nrfjprog --family nRF51 -e
nrfjprog --family nRF51 --program nrf51422_xxac.hex
nrfjprog --family nRF51 -r

But when I try the heart rate application that includes a soft device LED 1 blinks but the device cannot be seen from either the MCP app or my development machine. I used the commands below:

cd /home/joe/Tools/nRF5/tools/nRF5_SDK_11.0.0_89a8197/examples/ble_central/ble_app_hrs_c/pca10028/s130/armgcc
make
make flash_softdevice
cd _build
nrfjprog --family nRF51 --program nrf51422_xxac_s130.hex
nrfjprog --family nRF51 -r

I have managed to confirm that bluetooth works on the board by flashing an example application (developer.mbed.org/.../) using the mBed IDE.

I feel like I must be missing something simple. Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks

[RichieJH]

You may have to prog the soft device hex as well as the app hex.

[joe]

Can you elaborate? I thought that was what the "make flash_softdevice" command does? I get this output when its run:

➜  armgcc make flash_softdevice
Flashing: s130_nrf51_2.0.0_softdevice.hex
nrfjprog --program ../../../../../../components/softdevice/s130/hex/s130_nrf51_2.0.0_softdevice.hex -f nrf51 --chiperase
Parsing hex file.
Erasing code and UICR flash areas.
Applying system reset.
Checking that the area to write is not protected.
Programing device.
nrfjprog --reset -f nrf51
Applying system reset.
Run.

[RichieJH]

I see - must be something else.

[Håkon Alseth]

This looks all as according to the book. I cannot see anything wrong. Where have you pulled the compiler from? I would recommend using the upstream gcc from launchpad: launchpad.net/.../ download

This one comes with the newlibnano etc.

[joe]

I pulled in these three packages form the Arch repo: www.archlinux.org/.../ www.archlinux.org/.../ www.archlinux.org/.../

They are stored here:

➜  ~ which arm-none-eabi-g++
/usr/bin/arm-none-eabi-g++ 
➜  ~ which arm-none-eabi-gcc
/usr/bin/arm-none-eabi-gcc

Version is 6.1.1:

➜  ~ gcc -v
Using built-in specs.
COLLECT_GCC=gcc
COLLECT_LTO_WRAPPER=/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/6.1.1/lto-wrapper
Target: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
Configured with: /build/gcc/src/gcc/configure --prefix=/usr --libdir=/usr/lib --libexecdir=/usr/lib --mandir=/usr/share/man --infodir=/usr/share/info --with-bugurl=https://bugs.archlinux.org/ --enable-languages=c,c++,ada,fortran,go,lto,objc,obj-c++ --enable-shared --enable-threads=posix --enable-libmpx --with-system-zlib --with-isl --enable-__cxa_atexit --disable-libunwind-exceptions --enable-clocale=gnu --disable-libstdcxx-pch --disable-libssp --enable-gnu-unique-object --enable-linker-build-id --enable-lto --enable-plugin --enable-install-libiberty --with-linker-hash-style=gnu --enable-gnu-indirect-function --disable-multilib --disable-werror --enable-checking=release
Thread model: posix
gcc version 6.1.1 20160501 (GCC) 

and I modified the Makefile.posix to point to the correct place:

➜  ~ cd /home/joe/Tools/nRF5/tools/nRF5_SDK_11.0.0_89a8197/components/toolchain/gcc
➜  gcc cat Makefile.posix
GNU_INSTALL_ROOT := /usr/
GNU_VERSION := 6.1.1
GNU_PREFIX := arm-none-eabi

thanks