SDK12 DFU service not found

RE: SDK12 DFU service not found

Hung Bui — Thu, 24 Nov 2016 12:11:04 GMT

You mean to integrate bootloader into application ?

The "unknown characteristic" happens because it was experimental project (we created just for SDK v12v1) and we re going to replace that characteristic with another one when we move the example to official.

Note that you can always modify your app to recognize the "unknown characteristic" as DFU characteristic to make the end user experience better.

RE: SDK12 DFU service not found

jpolvi — Thu, 24 Nov 2016 11:49:16 GMT

I guess that is the best way to be able to use the application as needed and update when necessary. It's just that "unknown characteristic" and "unknown property" are not very descriptive if one does not know what should be done.

RE: SDK12 DFU service not found

Hung Bui — Thu, 24 Nov 2016 10:04:36 GMT

Hi Jpolvi,

I'm glad that it's smooth now. I will check why if we don't wait for the disconnection we may run into problem. I don't really get this part "Though the method of forcing the user to set the characteristic to force switching to bootloader would not be very user friendly for customer project...". What would be your preferred way of switching to bootloader ?

RE: SDK12 DFU service not found

jpolvi — Thu, 24 Nov 2016 07:39:03 GMT

Update: I added setting of flag is_waiting_for_disconnection to reception of message "enter bootloader". Now the software is working fine and even the restart on setting the bootloader switch characteristic works.

Though the method of forcing the user to set the characteristic to force switching to bootloader would not be very user friendly for customer project...

RE: SDK12 DFU service not found

jpolvi — Wed, 23 Nov 2016 07:59:31 GMT

I am using unmodified bootloader. Anyway, there is now significant progress after I modified the linker settings and rebuilt. Now the system works pretty well:

Erase the flash and flash softdevice and bootloader. Device is shown as DfuTarg in NRF Connect as expected.
Upload the application using DFU. The application starts and appears to work fine. Device is shown as "BTL4X1 2.49" as expected.
Force transfer to bootloader by setting the characteristic to 0x1. Device is once again shown as DfuTarg.
Reset the device by unplugging the power/log lead.
Upload the application using DFU.

Part 4 is the only problem right now. Even though the device is shown as DfuTarg as it should it appears it is not properly reset and DFU doesn't work (it just gets stuck showing "Uploading"). But if I force a reset I can DFU just fine.

RE: SDK12 DFU service not found

Hung Bui — Tue, 22 Nov 2016 13:55:55 GMT

Please test using unmodified example of the bootloader and let me know the result. (The bootloader setting should be located at 0x7F000)

RE: SDK12 DFU service not found

jpolvi — Tue, 22 Nov 2016 11:08:37 GMT

I am using gcc and make for the application (under Cygwin), since the build size is too big for UVision Lite version (>32 K). I am using uVision for bootloader and buttonless_dfu_app building for convenience, though I could use gcc and make as well since both do have a makefile. The bootloader location is set to 0x7A000 in the linker settings file. I added that setting after reading from another conversation that it is needed in gcc builds, but I guess the address is wrong. Guess I need to change that but should I also change the flash setting ? The bootloader linker memory settings also show flash starting at 0x78000 with length of 0x6000 so it is located below the settings area and also below MBR params.

RE: SDK12 DFU service not found

Hung Bui — Tue, 22 Nov 2016 10:14:19 GMT

@Jpolvi: I though you are using gcc and make ? The bootloader setting is set at 0x7F000 could you check why it's 0x7A000 from your log ?

RE: SDK12 DFU service not found

jpolvi — Tue, 22 Nov 2016 09:08:55 GMT

Memory settings in that file are as follows: FLASH (rx) : ORIGIN = 0x78000, LENGTH = 0x6000 RAM (rwx) : ORIGIN = 0x20002C00, LENGTH = 0x5380 NOINIT (rwx) : ORIGIN = 0x20007F80, LENGTH = 0x80 BOOTLOADER_SETTINGS (rw) : ORIGIN = 0x0007F000, LENGTH = 0x1000 UICR_BOOTLOADER (r) : ORIGIN = 0x10001014, LENGTH = 0x04 MBR_PARAMS_PAGE (rw) : ORIGIN = 0x0007E000, LENGTH = 0x1000 UICR_MBR_PARAM_PAGE(r) : ORIGIN = 0x10001018, LENGTH = 0x04

Though I am using uVision to build it. I also use uVision to build the demo, but for the application the code size limit of the lite version makes it impossible to use uVision. Perhaps that has some effect ?

RE: SDK12 DFU service not found

Hung Bui — Tue, 22 Nov 2016 08:49:56 GMT

@jpolvi: Could you check what you have in the secure_dfu_gcc_nrf52.ld file ? In that file the bootloader setting should be set at 0x0007F000. The bootloader setting should be located after the bootloader, in the sense that it should be on top of the flash (at address higher than the bootloader)

RE: SDK12 DFU service not found

jpolvi — Tue, 22 Nov 2016 08:21:29 GMT

Just noticed something odd. The log messages show the starting address of bootloader settings as 0x0007a000 while NRFGo (that I'm using for flashing) shows bootloader starting at 0x78000. Shouldn't bootloader settings be located before the bootloader itself ?

RE: SDK12 DFU service not found

jpolvi — Tue, 22 Nov 2016 07:42:31 GMT

Gotta try that next. The other activity does not have disable facility though, but that is easy enough to add. I guess the best location for disabling the softdevice and the other activity is when the message to enter bootloader (BLE_DFU_EVT_ENTERING_BOOTLOADER) is received. How should I disable the softdevice ? There doesn't appear to be function softdevice_disable but there is sd_softdevice_disable. I guess that will do ?

RE: SDK12 DFU service not found

Hung Bui — Mon, 21 Nov 2016 13:17:14 GMT

Ok, so I guess the issue is when you are trying to switch from application to bootloader ? It's better to disable the softdevice and other activity before you start the code to switch to bootloader.

RE: SDK12 DFU service not found

jpolvi — Mon, 21 Nov 2016 12:48:10 GMT

The application works fine with softdevice only. The debugging guide is of no use to me since I'm not using uVision (the application code size is too large for the lite version). I'm using gcc and makefile.

I may have found something, though. According to the logs it seems that as the BLE part of the SW is preparing to enter the bootloader the application is trying to send sensor data over BLE (using Nordic UART service). This is a separate part of the application that uses a timer to periodically read sensor data and send it over UART (to log window) and BLE. Could it be that this part of the application somehow causes the application to hang ?

RE: SDK12 DFU service not found

Hung Bui — Mon, 21 Nov 2016 11:04:49 GMT

What if you just test your application with the softdevice only, no bootloader , no buttonless service ?

You can step into the code, add a breakpoint and find what caused the issue. Please have a look at the this debug guide.

RE: SDK12 DFU service not found

jpolvi — Mon, 21 Nov 2016 10:58:47 GMT

Bootloader and buttonless demo work fine. If I erase the device and flash softdevice and bootloader to it I can then DFU the demo to it without a hitch. At this stage the application works fine as well, no problems there. I can DFU the application to the device and it starts and works fine.

I only run into problems if I try to update the application (with the application already present) using NRF connect and setting the specified characteristic as specified earlier. In this case the device locks up. If I use the demo instead - no problems at all. It seems I have probably missed some message handling (got to check it). I even changed the advertising initialisation to match that of demo but it didn't help.

Is the BSP needed ? In the application it is left out but it may be that it is necessary.

RE: SDK12 DFU service not found

Hung Bui — Mon, 21 Nov 2016 09:53:03 GMT

@jpolvi: We need to make sure the bootloader and the buttonless part work properly first. Could you state which set-up works, and which doesn't work ?

RE: SDK12 DFU service not found

jpolvi — Fri, 18 Nov 2016 14:22:34 GMT

No, the device is not shown at all. I tried it with the demo and it worked without problems. It would appear that the problem lies with advertising initialisation method used in the application. It is done in completely nonstandard way that probably has trouble with DFU usage. The advertising initialisation used in the application is pretty much unchanged from the original implementation (originally from SDK 8, AFAIK). Basically the initialisation just sets the advertising data using ble_advdata_set (custom data, the device is a multisensor IoT device). I guess I should try to modify that next.

RE: SDK12 DFU service not found

Hung Bui — Fri, 18 Nov 2016 14:09:40 GMT

If you are using gcc, you may want to have a look at this.

RE: SDK12 DFU service not found

Hung Bui — Fri, 18 Nov 2016 14:04:08 GMT

It says "starting advertising" do you see the device advertises ?

Have you tested with the example with no modification ? (except for adding write property)

RE: SDK12 DFU service not found

jpolvi — Fri, 18 Nov 2016 13:27:32 GMT

Ok, I added a write property and did a rebuild. Still problems. For some reason writing 1 to the characteristic while the application is running causes it to lock up. The last log messages I'm getting are:

:INFO:Erasing old settings at: 0x0007a000 :INFO:Erasing: 0x0007a000, num: 1 :INFO:Writing 0x00000057 words :INFO:Writing settings... Debug: BLE: default - error? :INFO:Obtained settings, enter dfu is 1 Debug: BLE: disconnected! Debug: Starting advertising...

After that - nothing. Lines starting with Debug are BLE event handler messages using my customised logging routine. For some reason I could not get the logging macros to work so I did a custom implementation.

RE: SDK12 DFU service not found

Hung Bui — Fri, 18 Nov 2016 11:28:51 GMT

Hi jpolvi, Sorry that it takes so long. Yes it's a known bug, as described at #3 in Newly found issues here.

You need to add write property for the characteristic.

RE: SDK12 DFU service not found

jpolvi — Fri, 18 Nov 2016 11:09:22 GMT

So, if I got this right: I connect to the device using NRF connect, enable services from the menu and select the unknown service having the UUID shown above, then write 0x01 to the characteristic and it should then go into bootloader ? I first had trouble finding the characteristic (had to disable "parse known characteristics" for it to appear) but writing 0x01 to it doesn't seem to work (will type setting of byte array be ok ?).

I noticed that ble_dfu.c in my copy of SDK doesn't seem to have the line char_md.char_props.write = 1; but it does have char_md.char_props.notify = 1; and the characteristic only seems to have the notify property. Perhaps I need to add the write property and recompile for it to work ?

Sorry this is taking so long, but I'm kinda new to Bluetooth development. But I'm learning...

RE: SDK12 DFU service not found

Hung Bui — Fri, 18 Nov 2016 08:57:20 GMT

@jpolvi: Please follow step 6 and 7 in this guide. You need to write to the charactersitic under 8e400001-f315-4f60-9fb8-838830daea50. You can use nRF Connect for this. Sorry that the app is not up to date for SDK v12.1 experimental example.

But the principle is very simple, you add a service and characteristic so that when you write 0x01 to it, it switches to bootloader.

RE: SDK12 DFU service not found

jpolvi — Fri, 18 Nov 2016 07:49:48 GMT

Ok, I tried with the buttonless DFU demo (2.0.0 version) by generating a zip package from it (exactly with same settings and signature file as with the application). First I erased the flash and flashed softdevice and bootloader to it. The device was shown as normal (DfuTarg or DfuTest, can't remember which) and uploading the package worked without problems. After the upload the device was shown as Nordic_Template so I selected it and tried to upload the demo packet again. Guess what message I received ? Yep, "DFU service not found". So the demo appears to be broken, after all ?