How can I update advertising data without restarting advertising process ?

RE: How can I update advertising data without restarting advertising process ?

venerley — Mon, 19 Mar 2018 08:25:54 GMT

My work was based on the ble_app_template example so I inherited the setup process. There could be some effect on the order of setup.

Anyway this is my setup process, almost identical to the ble_app_template example. However looks like you are also providing the contents of the advertising packet, which I have delegated to the stack. In my case it wasn't necessary to stop advertising, change scan response, start advertising.

int main(void)
{
    bool erase_bonds;

    // Sets up nrf_log
    log_init();
    // this is where the timer module is initialised & new timers created.
    timers_init();
    // sets up buttons & leds. Note: the value of erase_bonds is determined
    // by the button pressed when the board boots.
    buttons_leds_init(&erase_bonds);

    // configure the softdevice
    ble_stack_init();

    // set all the gap parameters, timings and the appearance.
    gap_params_init();

    //
    gatt_init();

    services_init();
    advertising_init();
    conn_params_init();
    peer_manager_init();

    // Start execution.
    NRF_LOG_INFO("Template example started.\r\n");
    application_timers_start();

    advertising_start();

    // set up the uart
    uart_init();

    // Enter main loop.
    for (;;)
    {
        if (NRF_LOG_PROCESS() == false)
        {
            power_manage();
        }
    }
}

RE: How can I update advertising data without restarting advertising process ?

Nijat — Mon, 19 Mar 2018 07:51:48 GMT

Yes, all steps are working. But I cannot update the Advertising Data without these procedure : stopAdv, initAdv & startAdv.

I used sd_ble_gap_adv_data_set, but it returns error 7 which represent Invalid_PARAMS.

When we initAdv, it calls sd_ble_gap_adv_data_set, but the parameter p_data is an p_encoded_advdata. So using directly sd_ble_gap_adv_data_set returns Invalid_DATA, but if I put p_encoded_advdata as parameters it returns Invalid_PARAMS.

Also the type of Invalid_DATA is ble_advdata_t.

RE: How can I update advertising data without restarting advertising process ?

venerley — Sat, 17 Mar 2018 20:23:15 GMT

Absolutely right. You might want to endure the pain of the tutorials on advertising and setting up a service (the tutorials use SDK11). If you set up a service, as shown in the Service tutorial then the stack will handle adverting it and you only need worry about managing the scan response. So I did 4 things:

1) Set up up a service as describe in the Service tutorial.

2) Used that service setting up advertising & noting that setting the contents of the entire

ble_adv_modes_config_t to zero

static void advertising_init(void)
{
    ret_code_t             err_code;
    ble_advdata_t          advdata;
    ble_adv_modes_config_t options;

    // Build advertising data struct to pass into @ref ble_advertising_init.
    memset(&advdata, 0, sizeof(advdata));

    advdata.name_type               = BLE_ADVDATA_FULL_NAME;
    //advdata.include_appearance      = true;
    advdata.flags                   = BLE_GAP_ADV_FLAGS_LE_ONLY_GENERAL_DISC_MODE;
    advdata.uuids_complete.uuid_cnt = sizeof(m_adv_uuids) / sizeof(m_adv_uuids[0]);
    advdata.uuids_complete.p_uuids  = m_adv_uuids;

    memset(&options, 0, sizeof(options));
    err_code = ble_advertising_init(&advdata, NULL, /*NULL*/ &options, on_adv_evt, NULL);
    APP_ERROR_CHECK(err_code);
}

Start advertising:

static void advertising_start(void)
{
    // Initialize advertising parameters (used when starting advertising).
	ble_gap_adv_params_t m_adv_params;
    memset(&m_adv_params, 0, sizeof(m_adv_params));

    m_adv_params.type			= BLE_GAP_ADV_TYPE_ADV_SCAN_IND; 	//BLE_GAP_ADV_TYPE_ADV_NONCONN_IND;
    m_adv_params.p_peer_addr 	= NULL;								// Undirected advertisement.
    m_adv_params.fp				= BLE_GAP_ADV_FP_ANY; 				/**< Allow scan requests and connect requests from any device. */
    m_adv_params.interval		= NON_CONNECTABLE_ADV_INTERVAL; 	// setting the advertising interval to 100ms.
    m_adv_params.timeout		= APP_CFG_NON_CONN_ADV_TIMEOUT; 	// this define is 0, meaning that advertising will never timeout.

    ret_code_t err_code = sd_ble_gap_adv_start(&m_adv_params, BLE_CONN_CFG_TAG_DEFAULT);
    APP_ERROR_CHECK(err_code);
}

Update the scan response when required

#define SR_LEN 15

static void scan_resp_timeout_handler(void * p_context)
{
    UNUSED_PARAMETER(p_context);
	static uint8_t sr_data[SR_LEN];
	sr_data[00] = SR_LEN - 1;		// Ad length- length of the data field not including the length field (to SR_LEN)!
	sr_data[01] = 0xff;				// Ad type	- Manufacturers specific data
	sr_data[02] = 0xff;				// Ad 		- Manufacturers ID
	sr_data[03] = 0xff;				// Ad 		- Manufacturers ID


	/*
		Update the sr_data array with your new data - bytes 4 -> 14
		But make sure you get the value of the length correct otherwise you’ll get a fatal error!
		err_code = 9 NRF_ERROR_INVALID_LENGTH
		Just 15 bytes are used here however you can use up to 31.
	 */   

    ret_code_t err_code = sd_ble_gap_adv_data_set(NULL, 0, sr_data, sizeof(sr_data));
    APP_ERROR_CHECK(err_code);
}

hope this helps.

RE: How can I update advertising data without restarting advertising process ?

Nijat — Sat, 17 Mar 2018 04:03:06 GMT

Also, the sr_data is Encoded Data ?

RE: How can I update advertising data without restarting advertising process ?

Nijat — Sat, 17 Mar 2018 01:48:30 GMT

The p_data can be uint8_array_t type ? Is it an array ?

RE: How can I update advertising data without restarting advertising process ?

Nijat — Sat, 17 Mar 2018 01:46:45 GMT

p_sr_data is the scanned data, right ?

And p_data is the advertising data.

RE: How can I update advertising data without restarting advertising process ?

venerley — Thu, 15 Mar 2018 19:36:06 GMT

I got it working by calling

ret_code_t err_code = sd_ble_gap_adv_data_set(NULL, 0, sr_data, sizeof(sr_data));

whenever the scan response data needed updating, where I managed the layout of the data within array sr_data.

RE: How can I update advertising data without restarting advertising process ?

FormerMember — Thu, 15 Mar 2018 11:36:55 GMT

It is not necessary to stop advertising when updating the advertising data.

The easiest way to update the advertising data is to call ble_adv_data_set() in ble_advertising.h/.c.