Advertising does not start with S140 6.1.0, same hex run without issue with S140 6.0.0

RE: Advertising does not start with S140 6.1.0, same hex run without issue with S140 6.0.0

hathach — Wed, 22 Aug 2018 06:25:48 GMT

superb !!! It works now, I did miss out the migration note. Thank you very much for troubleshoot this

RE: Advertising does not start with S140 6.1.0, same hex run without issue with S140 6.0.0

tesc — Tue, 21 Aug 2018 14:15:26 GMT

Hi,

It turns out, starting from SoftDevice versions 6.0.0, the GAP advertising data buffers (ble_gap_adv_data_t structures) must be kept alive for the full duration of advertising with that data. See the ble_gap_adv_data_t Struct Reference for details.

For your minimal example, this means in advertising_start() adv_buf and gap_adv needs to live longer than the scope of advertising_start(). For that example, declaring both of these static solves the issue:

void advertising_start(void)
{
  uint8_t _adv_handle = BLE_GAP_ADV_SET_HANDLE_NOT_SET;

  static uint8_t adv_buf[BLE_GAP_ADV_SET_DATA_SIZE_MAX];
  static ble_gap_adv_data_t gap_adv =
  {
      .adv_data = { .p_data = adv_buf, .len = 0 }
  };

// (...)

}

The lifetime requirement for ble_gap_adv_data_t is also stated in the s140 v6.0.0 migration guide.

Admittedly, there should have been a note in the documentation for sd_ble_gap_adv_set_configure() as well, stating there are lifetime requirements for the data pointed to by the p_adv_data parameter and referring to the ble_gap_adv_data_t documentation for details. Currently the requirements are not mentioned in the context where it is most important for developers to know about them. I consider this to be a documentation bug, and the SoftDevice team is notified of this documentation bug.

The reason why your application did work with s140 v6.0.0, is that although those lifetime requirements follows from the intended implementation within the SoftDevices, they are not needed with the actual implementation for versions 6.0.0. For SoftDevice versions 6.1.0, however, they are. (Failing to meet the lifetime requirements leads to undefined behavior.)

We still consider versions 6.0.0 and 6.1.0 compatible, provided that you follow the API documentation thoroughly.

Regards,
Terje

RE: Advertising does not start with S140 6.1.0, same hex run without issue with S140 6.0.0

hathach — Mon, 20 Aug 2018 16:39:07 GMT

great, hopefully we will have 6.1.1 soon :D

RE: Advertising does not start with S140 6.1.0, same hex run without issue with S140 6.0.0

tesc — Mon, 20 Aug 2018 12:09:03 GMT

Hi,

We don't have any solution yet, but the SoftDevice team has reproduced the issue within their setup and they are now looking into possible causes/workarounds/fixes. I would expect this to take a couple more days.

Regards,
Terje

RE: Advertising does not start with S140 6.1.0, same hex run without issue with S140 6.0.0

hathach — Fri, 17 Aug 2018 15:20:40 GMT

Great, I am looking forward to the fix 😃

RE: Advertising does not start with S140 6.1.0, same hex run without issue with S140 6.0.0

tesc — Fri, 17 Aug 2018 15:17:46 GMT

Hi,

Thank you for the clarification.

I can confirm the behavior, and the SoftDevice team is looking into the issue. Unfortunately we have not figured out what causes this yet, but we will continue investigating after the weekend. I will keep you updated.

Regards,
Terje

RE: Advertising does not start with S140 6.1.0, same hex run without issue with S140 6.0.0

hathach — Thu, 16 Aug 2018 16:12:16 GMT

Thank you for looking into the issue, I am just using nrfconnect app on android & iOS. Both cannot detect advertising with the minimal code above.

RE: Advertising does not start with S140 6.1.0, same hex run without issue with S140 6.0.0

tesc — Thu, 16 Aug 2018 14:13:49 GMT

Hi,

Thank you for the updates, and for the example for reproducing.

I have been using nRF Connect for desktop for testing. Have you done the same?

It turns out there are compatibility issues between the current release of nRF Connect for desktop and s140 v6.1.0, due to a known bug/limitation with the SoftDevice used for the connectivity firmware (s132 v3.0.1). The behavior that I see, both when testing SDK examples and when using the minimal example that you provided, seems to be consistent with what to expect given this compatibility issue. We are working on a fix for nRF Connect and the connectivity firmware.

Do you see similar issues when using other tools for connecting to your device, such as nRF Connect for mobile?

Regards,
Terje

RE: Advertising does not start with S140 6.1.0, same hex run without issue with S140 6.0.0

hathach — Wed, 15 Aug 2018 20:17:30 GMT

I update the 1st post with a very minimal code that could reproduce the issue. The code does nothing but advertise as "AdaDFU" and blinky an LED1. Advertising can be seen when flashed with S140 v6.0.0 but nothing show up with S140 6.1.0

RE: Advertising does not start with S140 6.1.0, same hex run without issue with S140 6.0.0

hathach — Wed, 15 Aug 2018 15:58:41 GMT

mine is production version v1.0.0. Thanks for looking at this, we are hoping to release the board with latest SD to save the hassle to upgrade bootloader later for user :D

RE: Advertising does not start with S140 6.1.0, same hex run without issue with S140 6.0.0

tesc — Wed, 15 Aug 2018 15:28:48 GMT

Hi,

I checked with the ble_app_hrs example from SDK 15.0.0, for the pca10056, first with the s140 v6.0.0, and then replaced it with s140 v6.1.0. While it does advertise and I and connect to it, I do experience some problems (it abruptly disconnects.) This was with pca10056 v0.12.0. I will investigate further, also with your firmware.

What are the markings on your pca10056?

Regards,
Terje

RE: Advertising does not start with S140 6.1.0, same hex run without issue with S140 6.0.0

hathach — Wed, 15 Aug 2018 09:59:58 GMT

All the SD call return success including the sd_ble_gap_adv_start()

https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit_nRF52_Bootloader/blob/master/lib/sdk11/components/libraries/bootloader_dfu/dfu_transport_ble.c#L708

Hmm strange

RE: Advertising does not start with S140 6.1.0, same hex run without issue with S140 6.0.0

hathach — Tue, 14 Aug 2018 16:03:13 GMT

I recompile but it couldn't run. And S140 6.1.0 release note did say it is binary compatible without the need to recompile

RE: Advertising does not start with S140 6.1.0, same hex run without issue with S140 6.0.0

Turbo J — Tue, 14 Aug 2018 14:20:50 GMT

NRF SDK version numbers in a nutshell:

S140 X.Y.Z

Changing Z is a bugfix and existing hex is supposed to work.

Changing Y is a small change and you need to re-compile the source code with updated headers.

Changing X is a big API change and will highly likely require significant changes in the source code.

In OP case there is a Y change. Make sure your SDK is updated with the 6.1.0 headers, and then compile the source code.

TL;DR
You need to re-compile the code with the correct header files.