Update firmware from nrf85240 flash

RE: Update firmware from nrf85240 flash

Jeffrey Haynes — Wed, 19 Jun 2019 11:50:07 GMT

No, I only ever got it working from USB unfortunately. I would still like to do it internally at some point.

RE: Update firmware from nrf85240 flash

Deep_Kapadia — Wed, 19 Jun 2019 11:48:30 GMT

Hello Jeff,
Have you got success in updating firmware from NRF's internal flash memory?

RE: Update firmware from nrf85240 flash

Jeffrey Haynes — Wed, 10 Oct 2018 17:17:54 GMT

Ok, sorry to have to revisit this but I realize I still need to update the firmware from the application.

I am now using the vanilla secure usb bootloader example and that works great. However, I also have the nRF attached to a cellular modem. I would like to receive packages from the modem, store them on the nRF internal flash, and then initiate dfu using GPREGRET.

How do you recommend I go about this?

Thanks

RE: Update firmware from nrf85240 flash

Jeffrey Haynes — Fri, 05 Oct 2018 13:49:26 GMT

Thank you, I think I originally misunderstood. It is now working!

RE: Update firmware from nrf85240 flash

Hung Bui — Fri, 05 Oct 2018 10:08:41 GMT

We have a tutorial here regarding the bootloader. It's made for BLE bootloader, but would be similar to the UART bootloader. If you can describe your requirement and why you don't want to use our current bootloader solution we can try to give you an advice on what we think would be the best.

RE: Update firmware from nrf85240 flash

Jeffrey Haynes — Thu, 04 Oct 2018 15:22:50 GMT

I am trying to use the bootloader. I’ve added it to my linker script. I’m not sure what else I need to do.

Thanks

RE: Update firmware from nrf85240 flash

Hung Bui — Thu, 04 Oct 2018 15:21:31 GMT

Hi Jeff,

If you don't use the bootloader, how do you plan to replace the image ? An application can't replace itself. You would need to use an external application, such as a bootloader, or use the MBR to do the task. Please describe what exactly you want/plan to do.

RE: Update firmware from nrf85240 flash

Jeffrey Haynes — Thu, 04 Oct 2018 15:18:21 GMT

I’m trying to make this work manually but I’m somewhat stuck. I’m calling nrf_dfu_cache_prepare but the assert on line 207 is hit as my cache_address and bootloader_start_addr are both 0x26000.

RE: Update firmware from nrf85240 flash

Jeffrey Haynes — Thu, 04 Oct 2018 14:27:57 GMT

Unfortunately it looks like fds storage system and the dfu flash system can’t coexist because of colliding global m_fs defines. One of these days Nordic is going to discover c++ and the beauty of correct scope management :)

RE: Update firmware from nrf85240 flash

Jeffrey Haynes — Thu, 04 Oct 2018 14:01:38 GMT

Ok, in going through this it looks like I can probably use the copy image stuff from nrf_bootloader_fw_activation.c. But it also looks like maybe what I really want is to copy from our fds-backed storage into bank1 and then activate, correct?

RE: Update firmware from nrf85240 flash

Jeffrey Haynes — Thu, 04 Oct 2018 13:26:06 GMT

I think changing where I start would be better so I’m not overwriting the app until I know it’s in a good state but I can do either.

RE: Update firmware from nrf85240 flash

Hung Bui — Thu, 04 Oct 2018 13:22:27 GMT

Hi Jeff, could you answer the previous question ? Do you plan to do flash swapping or you want to simply change where you start your application after the softdevice/MBR ?

RE: Update firmware from nrf85240 flash

Jeffrey Haynes — Thu, 04 Oct 2018 12:44:24 GMT

Also I’m sorry, I was mistaken. We are not currently using a bootloader.

RE: Update firmware from nrf85240 flash

Jeffrey Haynes — Thu, 04 Oct 2018 12:38:59 GMT

Ok, that is helpful but maybe I should backup and give more context. We are running a USB CDC serial protocol to our device already, which is used to send configuration and such. I would like to use that same protocol to update the application firmware.

Should I attempt to form a custom DFU transport and generate the appropriate packets or should I follow the bootloader activation model and simply copy the data into the correct location?

Thanks

RE: Update firmware from nrf85240 flash

Hung Bui — Thu, 04 Oct 2018 12:31:54 GMT

By "swap" you meant actually swap the new image in flash to replace the old image ? in your original question you mentioned about "to point to that new firmware and reboot" which is different.

If you plan to do flash swapping, you can have a look at our image_copy() function in nrf_bootloader_fw_activation.c to see how we do it with the flash.

If you plan to simply boot to the new image, you can have a look at this discussion.

RE: Update firmware from nrf85240 flash

Jeffrey Haynes — Thu, 04 Oct 2018 12:11:11 GMT

Thanks Hung,

We are using the bootloader and the softdevice. I would simply like to swap to the new application firmware (and possibly a new softdevice although that’s less important).

RE: Update firmware from nrf85240 flash

Hung Bui — Thu, 04 Oct 2018 12:08:42 GMT

Hi Jeff,

Could you give some more information about your implementation ? Do you have any bootloader running before your application ? Do you have the softdevice (and therefore the MBR) running on the chip ?

The way we are doing now is to use a bootloader to swap the original application with the new application with flash operations. By doing this we have a fixed location for application and fixed location for new image.

Do you also want to swap image or you want to keep multiple application images and can choose which image to run ?