nRF52832 GCC Issues

RE: nRF52832 GCC Issues

Hung Bui — Fri, 29 Dec 2017 13:55:31 GMT

Hi Josh,

Did you do bonding ? If you do bonding and then if you erase bond on the phone, the phone won't be able to connect to your device because the bond information is still on the device.

How did you test ? Please try to use only nRFConnect to test, don't use the phone Bluetooth setting as it will request pairing.

When you do chiperase, the bond information is erased as well so you connect normally.

I suggest you to check with debugger to see if the device assert any problem when you flash with sectorerase.

RE: nRF52832 GCC Issues

josh — Fri, 22 Dec 2017 22:03:33 GMT

@Hung Bui, I tried the hex file you provided, same behaivor a described in my previous post, --chiperase works, --sectorerase results in an application my phone can see but pairing is rejected. I merged the hex file you provided with SoftDevice 132 v5.0.0 before programming.

With this in mind, I think I'm pretty comfortable assuming it's not my build environemnt / GCC setup that is the issue, that said I've attached a hex file form the SDK 14.2 HRS example that I built with this GCC setup:

GNU_INSTALL_ROOT := D:/GNU_Arm/5_4_2016_q3/bin/
GNU_VERSION := 6.3.1

See Edit 1 in original post for link to file.

RE: nRF52832 GCC Issues

Hung Bui — Fri, 22 Dec 2017 16:06:08 GMT

Hi Josh,

Could you provide a hex file you compile using one of our example that has the issue you are seeing (the issue with --sectorerase) so we can test here.

I attached here a hex file that I used gcc to compile ble_app_hrs SDK v14.2. Could you try to test ?

nrf52832_xxaa.hex

RE: nRF52832 GCC Issues

josh — Fri, 22 Dec 2017 15:24:28 GMT

After a lot of trial and error last night I finally got things to work, and was able to zero in on the issue, but would like some help help understanding it.

It all comes down to how I do the programming, as you suggested Matt, I've tried a lot of different ways to program the application, soft device (S132 v3 that was bundled with SKD 12.3), and combined hex files containing both. What eventually worked was programming the combined hex file with the command line tools (nrfjprog).

If I command a --sectorerase the flashing goes fine but the application does not behave correctly, if I combine my application hex file and soft device and program them with a --chiperase things work perfectly. I also did some experimenting with programming the precompiled example (via nrfjprog), same behavior, --chiperase fails to pair, --sectorerase works. When I was originally troubleshooting I was programming my compiled hex files via the make file, which commands --sectorerase, and I was dropping the combined precompiled hex file into the USB mass storage device for the devboard and letting it do the programming. I'm guessing that the USB mass storage programming results in a chip erase, because things always seemed to work when I programmed the precompiled examples this way.

Any thoughts on what could be causing this? Seems like a problem with the programming tool?

RE: nRF52832 GCC Issues

Matt — Fri, 22 Dec 2017 14:26:38 GMT

Weird indeed. Did you observe any funky compiler warnings from the armgcc? I believe the precompiled hex includes the softdevice already so when you flash in your own armgcc compiled bin do you flash in the softdevice first (the one that comes with the sdk12)? Do you use nRF cmd line utilities or the nRFgo studio to flash in the softdevice and your bin file?

RE: nRF52832 GCC Issues

josh — Fri, 22 Dec 2017 06:29:17 GMT

It's also worth noting that with the HRS example I am seeing the device advertising in Android, but it always fails to pair. When I switch to the precompiled example hex file things pair smoothly.

RE: nRF52832 GCC Issues

josh — Fri, 22 Dec 2017 06:26:43 GMT

I've now tried 3 different versions of the GNU ARM compiler, and I get strange / erratic behavior no matter which one I use.

I think it has to be something in my configuration of the tools that is causing issues. I've tried building the HID example with no changes to the v12.3 SDK, with the exception of updating Makefile.common to properly point to my GNU ARM installation directory.

I've been through the tutorial for setting up GCC/Eclipse several times and I've followed it as exactly as I can, some menus have moved around in the newest Eclipse version, but I'm pretty sure I've configured everything correctly. I've tried building both the HID and HRS examples, I switched to the HRS example since it's the one in the tutorial and the project files were provided for it.

RE: nRF52832 GCC Issues

josh — Fri, 22 Dec 2017 06:01:40 GMT

I've now tried 3 different versions of the GNU ARM compiler, and I get strange / erratic behavior no matter which one I use.

RE: nRF52832 GCC Issues

josh — Fri, 22 Dec 2017 02:07:38 GMT

Haven't changed them from the default example values:

#define APP_ADV_FAST_INTERVAL            0x0028
#define APP_ADV_SLOW_INTERVAL            0x0C80
#define APP_ADV_FAST_TIMEOUT             30    
#define APP_ADV_SLOW_TIMEOUT             180

I'm definitely getting some bizarre behavior...I'm planning to try a different version of the toolchain, if I'm still having issues I can at least rule that out...

RE: nRF52832 GCC Issues

Matt — Fri, 22 Dec 2017 02:02:49 GMT

That gcc has been working fine for me for the last few months. Can you check the advertising intervals values in the c file (most likely the main.c module)?