Is TIMER2 now being used by Softdevice??

RE: Is TIMER2 now being used by Softdevice??

RK — Fri, 24 Jun 2016 00:33:12 GMT

happy to help - if you want to pick one of those comments you think is most helpful, convert it to an answer with the 'convert to answer' link and give it a tick, that'll marked it answered and save Nordic support having to read it all again in the morning!

RE: Is TIMER2 now being used by Softdevice??

kevray — Fri, 24 Jun 2016 00:18:22 GMT

And thanks for the assist!

RE: Is TIMER2 now being used by Softdevice??

kevray — Fri, 24 Jun 2016 00:18:03 GMT

I owe you a beer! I still think there's a bug though that's being triggered because of new timing issues. For instance, we have had no problem with the reverse order. Only now has this become a problem.

E.g.,:

//  This now works:

ble_init();
nrf_delay_ms(100);
systick_init();

//  But this doesn't work:
systick_init();
nrf_delay_ms(100);
ble_init();

RE: Is TIMER2 now being used by Softdevice??

RK — Fri, 24 Jun 2016 00:07:44 GMT

0x02, that's easy then.

#define NRF_ERROR_SOFTDEVICE_NOT_ENABLED   (NRF_ERROR_BASE_NUM + 2)
#define 	NRF_ERROR_BASE_NUM   (0x0)

so you're calling the set tx power before you enable the softdevice. I would hazard a guess that the softdevice init takes a little longer than before and your timer handler goes off and results in your calling the power set in the wrong order. Or something like that.

RE: Is TIMER2 now being used by Softdevice??

kevray — Fri, 24 Jun 2016 00:00:14 GMT

sd_ble_gap_tx_power_set(0x04) returns 0x02 which seems to read like it's a bad parameter. But, if we do not make the call to systick_init() then this passes. I agree with your comment - probably an unrelated issue coming to light because of timing changes.

RE: Is TIMER2 now being used by Softdevice??

RK — Thu, 23 Jun 2016 23:45:07 GMT

So what do you do when that call fails? Ignore the faliure, error out, reset, try to recover? If you've failed to set the power, I have no idea what invalid state the softdevice is in. Where are you calling the power set function from?

Wondered if you were compiling against the wrong softdevice headers but lots more wouldn't work if you were doing that, but worth a check.

It's very unlikely it really has anything to do with TIMER2, the change in SDK has most probably uncovered a bug which was lurking before, a timing-sensitive one. Oh and what's the error return from the power set function?

RE: Is TIMER2 now being used by Softdevice??

kevray — Thu, 23 Jun 2016 23:35:34 GMT

Nope. No overt errors and everything else continues to run perfectly. Never goes to an error handler. One other clue, this function: sd_ble_gap_tx_power_set(NRF51822_TX_POWER_LEVEL_dBm) fails when systick_init() is called. Otherwise, no errors at all.

RE: Is TIMER2 now being used by Softdevice??

RK — Thu, 23 Jun 2016 23:05:22 GMT

No nothing has changed with regards usage of TIMER2, the softdevice didn't use it before, it doesn't use it now.

'no longer get BLE Advertisements' usually translates to 'failed an error check and are in the error handler/hardfault handler'. So if you hit break in the debugger, where are you?

.. and there are no calls to any softdevice functions from your timer interrupt handler are there?