nRF52 DK (pca10040) not seen by nrfjprog after IF update

RE: nRF52 DK (pca10040) not seen by nrfjprog after IF update

Mike W — Sat, 22 Jul 2017 05:12:32 GMT

It turns out there's another issue that was lurking behind this one, and it's in the USB driver. This separate issue is what was causing the device not to be seen by nrfjprog. I ran into it again, and fortunately it was relatively easy to fix - just going to "Universal Serial Bus devices" in Device Manager and uninstalling JLink there then unplugging and replugging did the trick. Not sure what caused the issue itself, but this is good to keep in mind if you have this problem.

RE: nRF52 DK (pca10040) not seen by nrfjprog after IF update

Hung Bui — Mon, 10 Jul 2017 14:11:18 GMT

Glad to hear you found the real cause. It's true that the low quality (or very long) USB cable can really cause an issue. I sometimes have to have a very short one to test when needed.

RE: nRF52 DK (pca10040) not seen by nrfjprog after IF update

Mike W — Sun, 09 Jul 2017 16:39:41 GMT

I believe I've solved this problem, and it's a USB issue.

It looks to be that there was a high resistance or high capacitance connection at the USB connector I was debugging a USB controller for another project (breadboarded) and was able to reproduce the exact same errors with a separate dev kit when I had poor capacitance control and separately with cheap higher-resistance wires.

The explanation for this is that the USB enumeration process always starts by assuming low-speed 1.5Mbps USB until proven otherwise by the Get_Device_Descriptor response. The slow data rates for the initial device detection were able to pass through fine, but once the device enumerates as high speed, the 12Mbps rates associated with any real data transfer caused the device to not respond properly and cease to be detected.

In the capacitance sense, this happens of course because ringing prevents a clear signal from getting back, but it's even more suspect in the resistance case because the USB controller expects different resistances for the low-speed vs full-speed USB (the 1.5k tie to 5V needs to be on the opposite data line).

Experimenting separately with other USB devices by allowing cross-talk between the lines, increasing the resistance (or the capacitance significantly), or tying the high data line through another resistor to ground (imitating a short) all lead to similar behavior.

Thanks to the Nordic guys for your tremendous patience in helping me get through this and I hope this solution helps others in my shoes! It's not the first time I've heard of this kind of issue online.

RE: nRF52 DK (pca10040) not seen by nrfjprog after IF update

Mike W — Fri, 30 Jun 2017 00:30:41 GMT

For real :P

That is unfortunate but makes sense. You never know before the week though whether you're just doing something stupid! Thanks for the info - I'll let you know how it goes.

RE: nRF52 DK (pca10040) not seen by nrfjprog after IF update

endnode — Thu, 29 Jun 2017 10:12:00 GMT

Actually getting new DK for USD/EUR one week ago looks like cheaper solution looking on how much time we all spend on it;)))

RE: nRF52 DK (pca10040) not seen by nrfjprog after IF update

endnode — Thu, 29 Jun 2017 10:11:54 GMT

(I'd almost say "wtf is Ozone and why you don't stick with official SEGGER SW":) Atmel chip hosing SEGGER J-Link is not possible to JTAG (because you don't have proper binary I'm afraid) so the only way is to either use BIN images which are in download section of each nRF5 DK at main Nordic product page and drag&drop them once your board is in BOOTLOADER mode by pressing dedicated button during power on procedure or (e.g. if previous is not possible) by using SEGGER J-Link Configurator tool (or something similar) which knows how to talk to that bootloader pre-loaded to Atmel SAMxxx chip and switch the FW over USB. You could try to hack physical JTAG/SWD or other serial bootlader wires to Atmel chip but I'm afraid even if you succeed you don't have complete FW image to flash it there (and any partial reflashing will be probably locked).

RE: nRF52 DK (pca10040) not seen by nrfjprog after IF update

Mike W — Thu, 29 Jun 2017 00:40:57 GMT

Is the J-Link version that comes with Ozone the correct one? If so, I'm just then interested in your experience attaching the Segger to the thing physically.

RE: nRF52 DK (pca10040) not seen by nrfjprog after IF update

Mike W — Wed, 28 Jun 2017 23:47:38 GMT

So that I did use, and of course chose to replaced the drivers. I think a faulty version of an mbed FW is on the chip, but Arduino didn't cause the problem - I didn't start with that until well after nothing else was working as a last resort trying all options.

Could you link me to the proper J-Link IF for the companion Atmel chip? It looks from the schematic like the relevant pins are 48,51,54-56. Is this consistent with what you did? It's easy enough to get at all but 48, as they are broken out with the appropriate resistors to the needle 4 of the 2x5 needle probe pads below the chip. As I interpret the Microchip/Atmel documentation though, 48 needs to be set high to activate the serial programming of the chip, and it has no external connection according to the schematic. I'd have to hit that pin directly - maybe whip out the microscope and solder a tiny lead on it. Any tips?

RE: nRF52 DK (pca10040) not seen by nrfjprog after IF update

Mike W — Wed, 28 Jun 2017 21:15:49 GMT

Hi Hung,

That is the only FW I've been uploading (as linked in the question). My point is that it won't seem to replace the mbed. I'll go ahead and create the MyPage.

Thanks again for the help.

RE: nRF52 DK (pca10040) not seen by nrfjprog after IF update

Hung Bui — Mon, 26 Jun 2017 15:03:07 GMT

Hi again Mike,

If you still have problem with the board, please create a case on our MyPage with refer to this case on devzone, we can try to send you some files for testing.

RE: nRF52 DK (pca10040) not seen by nrfjprog after IF update

Hung Bui — Fri, 23 Jun 2017 11:43:49 GMT

Could you try to switch to the nRF5x-OB-JLink-IF and check if nrfjprog can work ? If you are in mbed mode, of course nrfjprog won't work.

RE: nRF52 DK (pca10040) not seen by nrfjprog after IF update

endnode — Thu, 22 Jun 2017 22:45:38 GMT

No, by J-Link Configurator I mean EXE which comes with J-Link SW package (for Windows at least). It contains J-Link OB FW for various boards including Nordic nRF5x DKs as well as SEGGER driver etc. However fact that Arduino can work with SEGGER flasher and nrfjprog (using SEGGER dlls) not is extremely weird. Are you sure Arduino IDE is not using their serial bootloader flashed to the nRF5x chip?

RE: nRF52 DK (pca10040) not seen by nrfjprog after IF update

Mike W — Thu, 22 Jun 2017 21:16:08 GMT

Thanks for the suggestion!

By J-Link Configurator, you mean the Wizard in Ozone? I know they refer to it as the Configurator on their site, but there is no such download, so I'm assuming they're just naming their feature and being a bit inconsistent with its labeling. I do see the ATSAM3X2C option in Ozone, so I'll see if I can flash just the companion chip that way with the J-Link.

When you say you needed to pick mbed composite driver manually, what do you mean exactly? Do you mean select the composite (i.e. versus other drivers) from some website? If so, which website and which driver(s)? Or do you mean that you used a tool that installs other drivers (like the J-Link SW & Doc Kit), or something else? I'll try using J-Flash to load the OB FW as you suggested.

Thanks again for the help.

RE: nRF52 DK (pca10040) not seen by nrfjprog after IF update

Mike W — Thu, 22 Jun 2017 20:47:24 GMT

Thanks for the reply! I still cannot use nrfjprog, but now the DK is recognized as a valid mbed-style usb device (shows up as a drive and can be IF flashed with drag/drop). The arduino IDE, which I'm no big fan of, also correctly programs the board.

RE: nRF52 DK (pca10040) not seen by nrfjprog after IF update

Hung Bui — Thu, 22 Jun 2017 09:31:53 GMT

You mean after you tried "Also tried sandeepmistry's arduino library " you can now use nrfjprog to program the nRF5 chip?

Seems like it was a problem with the driver before, as you mentioned that you re-install all drivers and the Jlink driver now showed up.

Could you sum up the problem now ? The last thing you said was that you can use nrfjprog. Was the problem solved ?

RE: nRF52 DK (pca10040) not seen by nrfjprog after IF update

endnode — Thu, 22 Jun 2017 08:37:43 GMT

Have you tried to install latest (or going backwards some older) SEGGER J-Link SW package and use J-Link Configurator to flash J-Link OB FW on companion Atmel chip?

I faced issues in SEGGER/mBed drivers for J-Link and I sometimes needed to pick mbed composite driver manually (on Win7) to make it work as both J-Link and COM serial port. But in the end always nrfjprog from the latest NRFTOOLs package started to work again...