"No response from master emulator" in Master Control Panel

[Miriam]

I know this question has been asked before. As a beginner to Nordic, I tried to get the information here, but ended up even more confused.

I am trying to set up a Bluetooth connection following this tutorial https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/tutorials/b/getting-started/posts/getting-started-with-the-nrf5-development-kit using the nRF51 Development Kit and an nRF51-Dongle. When I set up Master Control Panel, I got the "No response from master emulator" message.

What I use: 

• Master Control Panel 3.10.0.14, 64 bit version 
• Windows 10 64 bit 
• firmware folder of MCP contains a folder named "pca10000", this contains the files MEFW_nrf51822_0.11.0_firmware_1M.hex, MEFW_nrf51822_0.10.0_firmware_1M.hex, and MEFW_nRF51822_0.9.0_firmware_115K2.hex (only versions 9 and 11 show up in MCP) 
• Hardware that worked with a 32 bit Windows system and Master Control Panel 3.10.0.14, 32 bit (the colleague who tried before me could at least once start a discovery) 

What I tried: 

• Flash the device via MCP 
  -> message "no response from master emulator" keeps coming 
  -> another dialogue window that says: "RBPCONF register indicates that the device is secured. For accessing memory the device needs to be unsecured. Note: Unsecuring will trigger a mass erase of the internal flash. Do you want to unsecure the device?" 
• Checked the device manager: the dongle shows up as "JLink CDC UART Port (COM4)", it also shows up as Port 4 in MCP 
• Tried to send the firmware file via command line 
  -> error message "File could not be open for read" 
• Opened MCP as Administrator 
• Uninstalled MCP and nRF Tools, reinstalled MCP 
  -> reinstallation of MCP reinstalled nRF Tools 
  -> reinstallation of MCP also installed JLink version V4.98c; before there were V6.20i and V6.30h installed 

The error still persists. 

Thank you for any ideas. 

[Miriam]

Ok, following the advice in multiple threads on this issue, I installed nRF Connect for desktop instead of Master Control Panel. This works, I can connect now.

(Still confused what caused the error in the first place...)

[Jørgen Holmefjord]

Master Control Panel seems to not work well with recent versions of J-Link firmware and drivers. We recommend that you use nRF Connect instead.

[John]

I concur with the advice to switch to nRF Connect. However, in the cases where I have encountered this when falling back to MCP for reasons not worth going into, reloading MEFW_nRF51822_0.9.0_firmware_115K2.hex using nrfGO Studio has been effective in getting the master emulator to respond and function.