Loading ble_app_beacon on a custom board, stucking at sd_softdevice_enable

[fercholas]

Hi guys

I'm trying to load the ble_app_beacon project on a custom board. I am able to flash the softdevice and the application, but the chip is not advertising. So, I started debugging the chip using Eclipse and I noticed that it fails after calling sd_softdevice_enable, but I am unable to read error code.

Important information:

Chip: NRF51822 QFABC0

SDK: v10.0.0

Softdevice: : v8.0

ble_app_beacon_gecc_nrf51.dl :

/* Linker script to configure memory regions. */

SEARCH_DIR(.)
GROUP(-lgcc -lc -lnosys)

MEMORY
{
   FLASH (rx) : ORIGIN = 0x00018000, LENGTH = 0x20000
   RAM (rwx) :  ORIGIN = 0x20000000, LENGTH = 0x4000
}

SECTIONS
{
   .   fs_data_out ALIGN(4):
{
   PROVIDE( __start_fs_data = .);
   KEEP(*(fs_data))
   PROVIDE( __stop_fs_data = .);
 } = 0
}

 INCLUDE "nrf5x_common.ld"

Based on this post Why does the softdevice initialization hang?

I figured out that I had to change the clock source to:

SOFTDEVICE_HANDLER_INIT(NRF_CLOCK_LFCLKSRC_RC_250_PPM_4000MS_CALIBRATION, NULL);

because my custom board does not have an external 32 kHz crystal.

Unfortunately, the issue continues.

Any idea what could be happening?

Thanks in Advance

[Ole Bauck]

The API has changed in SDK 11 (or in S130/S132 v2 to be precise). This code will be the same as NRF_CLOCK_LFCLKSRC_RC_250_PPM_4000MS_CALIBRATION before:

nrf_clock_lf_cfg_t clock_lf_cfg = { .source        = NRF_CLOCK_LF_SRC_RC,            \
                                    .rc_ctiv       = 16,                                \
                                    .rc_temp_ctiv  = 0,                                \
                                    .xtal_accuracy = 0};

// Initialize the SoftDevice handler module.	
SOFTDEVICE_HANDLER_INIT(&clock_lf_cfg, NULL);

You can find more information about the nrf_clock_lf_cfg_t struct here.

[fercholas]

Hi Ole

My mistake, I am using SDK V10.0. This is the problem?

[Ole Bauck]

Then

SOFTDEVICE_HANDLER_INIT(NRF_CLOCK_LFCLKSRC_RC_250_PPM_4000MS_CALIBRATION, NULL);

Should work. You are sure the SoftDevice is programmed on the chip?

[fercholas]

I am programming the softdevice through Eclipse, this is the output:

09:46:16 **** Build of configuration Default for project minewBeacon_bleBeacon ****
 make VERBOSE=1 flash_softdevice 
 Flashing: s110_nrf51_8.0.0_softdevice.hex
 nrfjprog --program ../../../../components/softdevice/s110/hex/s110_nrf51_8.0.0_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
   Applying system reset.
   Run.

    09:46:18 Build Finished (took 2s.618ms)

While debugging I stuck here:

SVCALL(SD_SOFTDEVICE_ENABLE, uint32_t, sd_softdevice_enable(nrf_clock_lfclksrc_t clock_source, softdevice_assertion_handler_t assertion_handler));

with this error:

" NO RETURN, IN FUNCTION RETURNING NON-VOID"

Thanks in advance!

[Ole Bauck]

Can you give me a register dump, specifically the program counter?

Are you sure that the HFCLK crystal is working? You can check this with this code:

NRF_CLOCK->EVENTS_HFCLKSTARTED = 0;
NRF_CLOCK->TASKS_HFCLKSTART = 1;

while(NRF_CLOCK->EVENTS_HFCLKSTARTED == 0);

If the code does not exit the while loop then the crystal is not working correctly.