Central adds peripheral to the whitelist, but won't reconnect

[Nick Bentzen]

I am developing an application which uses 2 nrf52 running sdk 12.3 and softdevice 132 V3.

The central device appears to be saving and whitelisting the two peers, but it won't connect to them when I actually enable the whitelist - disable the whitelist and it works fine.

static void scan_start(bool refreshWhitelist)
{
uint32_t flash_busy;

(void) fs_queued_op_count_get(&flash_busy);

if (flash_busy != 0)
{
	m_memory_access_in_progress = true;
	return;
}

ble_gap_addr_t whitelist_addrs[maxWhitelist];
ble_gap_irk_t  whitelist_irks[maxWhitelist];

memset(whitelist_addrs, 0x00, sizeof(whitelist_addrs));
memset(whitelist_addrs, 0x00, sizeof(whitelist_irks));

uint32_t addr_cnt = (sizeof(whitelist_addrs) / sizeof(ble_gap_addr_t));
uint32_t irk_cnt  = (sizeof(whitelist_irks)  / sizeof(ble_gap_irk_t));

#if (NRF_SD_BLE_API_VERSION == 2)

ble_gap_addr_t * p_whitelist_addrs[maxWhitelist];
ble_gap_irk_t  * p_whitelist_irks[maxWhitelist];

for (uint32_t i = 0; i < maxWhitelist; i++)
{
    p_whitelist_addrs[i] = &whitelist_addrs[maxWhitelist];
    p_whitelist_irks[i]  = &whitelist_irks[maxWhitelist];
}

ble_gap_whitelist_t whitelist =
{
    .pp_addrs = p_whitelist_addrs,
    .pp_irks  = p_whitelist_irks,
};

#endif

if(refreshWhitelist) whitelist_load();

ret_code_t ret;

ret = pm_whitelist_get(whitelist_addrs, &addr_cnt,
						whitelist_irks, &irk_cnt);

m_scan_params.active   = 1;
m_scan_params.interval = SCAN_INTERVAL;
m_scan_params.window   = SCAN_WINDOW;

if (((addr_cnt == 0) && (irk_cnt == 0)) ||
    (m_whitelist_disabled))
{
    // Don't use whitelist.
    #if (NRF_SD_BLE_API_VERSION == 2)
        m_scan_params.selective   = 0;
        m_scan_params.p_whitelist = NULL;
    #endif
    #if (NRF_SD_BLE_API_VERSION == 3)
        m_scan_params.use_whitelist  = 0;
        m_scan_params.adv_dir_report = 0;
    #endif
    m_scan_params.timeout  = 0x0000; // No timeout.
}
else
{
    // Use whitelist.
    #if (NRF_SD_BLE_API_VERSION == 2)
        whitelist.addr_count     = addr_cnt;
        whitelist.irk_count      = irk_cnt;
        m_scan_params.selective   = 1;
        m_scan_params.p_whitelist = &whitelist;
    #endif
    #if (NRF_SD_BLE_API_VERSION == 3)
        m_scan_params.use_whitelist  = 1;
        m_scan_params.adv_dir_report = 1;
    #endif
    m_scan_params.timeout  = 0x0000;
}

ret = sd_ble_gap_scan_start(&m_scan_params);
APP_ERROR_CHECK(ret);
}

The whitelist_load() and peer_list_get() functions are the same as the examples they are taken from. In debugger (I am developing this using a Rigado dev board & Eclipse) I see that sd_ble_gap_scan_start() returns NRF_SUCCESS whether or not I start it with the whitelist enabled or disabled.

My peripheral device is running peer manager, but never sets a whitelist. These are my security parameters for both devices.

	sec_param.bond = true;
sec_param.mitm = false;
sec_param.lesc = 0;
sec_param.keypress = 0;
sec_param.io_caps = BLE_GAP_IO_CAPS_DISPLAY_ONLY;
sec_param.oob = false;
sec_param.min_key_size = 7;
sec_param.max_key_size = 16;
sec_param.kdist_own.enc = 1;
sec_param.kdist_own.id = 1;
sec_param.kdist_peer.enc = 1;
sec_param.kdist_peer.id = 1;

I'm kind of stuck here.

[Hung Bui]

Hi Nick,

Seems that the IRK is exchanged. Could you check if the IRK returned match with each of the central you connect ?

What is in "reconnect() " ?

Could you check if erase_bonds=1 when peer_manager_init() is called ? In our example we have a button to erase bond (and therefore whitelist), make sure it's not pressed by default.

One thing I don't understand, in your question you said if you don't use whitelist, everything works fine. If you use whitelist you can't scan and connect. But then your whitelist is empty as you mentioned in your comment, so how could it make a different ?