SD140 6.0.0-6-alpha BLE issues

RE: SD140 6.0.0-6-alpha BLE issues

Julie H — Thu, 09 Nov 2017 21:39:20 GMT

Oh. Dear. G-d. Alright, let me go diff all those things.

RE: SD140 6.0.0-6-alpha BLE issues

endnode — Thu, 09 Nov 2017 21:35:29 GMT

That's what I'm saying: delete all header files from that s140 folder in your "old" SDK structure and copy there header files you find in s140_nrf52840_6.0.0-6.alpha.zip\s140_nrf52840_6.0.0-6.alpha_API\include folder. This is at least first step. If you corrected LD file memory regions then at least basic startup should be OK and if you enable UART or RTT debug logging (or at least some simple GPIO debug pulses you put there on your own) it should show that FW is alive. You cannot assume that with new SD and new API compiled in it will work with old SDK (although it might if there are minimum changes).

RE: SD140 6.0.0-6-alpha BLE issues

Julie H — Thu, 09 Nov 2017 21:30:26 GMT

Yes, I have all of SDK 13.1's s140 headers in my project, and being compiled when I build my application. Just to be clear -- last Friday I was using s140-5.0.0.2-alpha with SDK 13.1 and BLE NUS worked. I mean, I don't have the entire comm layer debugged, but I can connect and do things. Then I found there was a new s140-6.0.0.6-alpha. I modified the .ld file to reflect the new FLASH and RAM sizes, erased my entire device, reflashed the new s140 image, recompiled, flashed the relocated application, and no BLE.

RE: SD140 6.0.0-6-alpha BLE issues

endnode — Thu, 09 Nov 2017 21:22:09 GMT

To your disbelief: Nordic "guarantee" support only on certain HW + SD + SDK combinations as per their compatibility matrix. For any other combinations you are on your own, however unless you get really unlucky or you try to bridge too large gap in terms of SDK and SD release dates/versions you typically get successful. And with specific concerns Nordic support team can invest the time here, use the same set-up as you and try to make some obvious examples work again. The main question is: whatever SDK version you decide to use do you have correct header files copied to (replacing the original set!) \components\softdevice\s140\headers\ folder (if you use different SD flavor then indeed path differs in sXXX part)?

RE: SD140 6.0.0-6-alpha BLE issues

endnode — Thu, 09 Nov 2017 21:16:24 GMT

Nice. Not sure how your experience in operating systems relates to understanding of Nordic Soft Device API but it doesn't matter;) And you are right (and I'm sorry), there seems to be no migration guide attached to S140 V6 alpha pack yet. Probably still too early alpha release. So then the only truth is in raw diff and when I compare V5.0.0-alpha.3 and V6.0.0-alpha.6 there are clearly small changes in basically all the layers and modules so you might need to go change per change and see if you use these SD API calls and structures or not.

RE: SD140 6.0.0-6-alpha BLE issues

Julie H — Thu, 09 Nov 2017 21:12:18 GMT

You're right -- I actually have S140-5.0.0-2alpha.

RE: SD140 6.0.0-6-alpha BLE issues

Julie H — Thu, 09 Nov 2017 21:10:31 GMT

I'm familiar with the concept - I wrote operating systems for about 20 years. I was more expressing my disbelief that a soft device update would be required which came along with a requirement that I change / upgrade my SDK AND there was no SDK update to upgrade to. As for the migration, there was no migration document for going from S140-5.0.0-5alpha to S140-6.0.0-6-alpha.

RE: SD140 6.0.0-6-alpha BLE issues

endnode — Thu, 09 Nov 2017 21:10:18 GMT

Btw. I wanted to run API packs through KDiff3 but where you got S140 V5.0.0-aplha.5? I see only alpha.3 in both compatibility matrix and Nordicsemi download pages...

RE: SD140 6.0.0-6-alpha BLE issues

endnode — Thu, 09 Nov 2017 21:07:28 GMT

The idea is that SDK and SD versions should be to certain extend independent. So each SDK is issued with certain SD set but you can any time upgrade/downgrade SDK API by using different set of header files and of course correcting ROM/RAM memory regions where applicable. Yes, there might be some problems if you use SDK modules/libs which use SD API (typically they take care about certain BLE functions to provide more high-level API for app developers who cannot or don't want to deal with the actual BLE stack layers) but I've in the past switched SD independently on SDK many times successfully.

RE: SD140 6.0.0-6-alpha BLE issues

Julie H — Thu, 09 Nov 2017 21:03:31 GMT

Would someone please confirm that there are NO SDK differences between S140-5.0.0-5-alpha (what we had) and S140-6.0.0-6-alpha? I am on SDK 13.1, which supposedly supports S140 and there is no new release of SDK 13.1. And 14.0 / 14.1 is a bridge too far at this time.

RE: SD140 6.0.0-6-alpha BLE issues

endnode — Thu, 09 Nov 2017 20:57:34 GMT

Maybe stupid question but just to be sure: you've replaced header files in your toolchain (e.g. in respective SDK folder) to match new SD API? Any conflicts to resolve? Have you also reviewed all the suggested changes from migration document issued with new SD? And finally is your app on top of new stack at lest alive in terms of UART/RTT logging, advertising etc.? Where exactly it breaks in terms of connection?