Problem with gnu toolchain: arm-none-eabi-objcopy: _build/nrf52832_xxaa.hex 64-bit address 0x4b4fa300026000 out of range for Intel Hex file

[BDSteve]

I'm attempting to get Eclipse and the GNU Arm toolchain installed on my Windows 10 system.  I'm following the instructions at...

https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/tutorials/b/getting-started/posts/development-with-gcc-and-eclipse

Except that I'm installing all the latest versions of things.  When I attempt to build the blinky example everything goes smoothly until the .Hex file...

D:\Development\SDKs\Nordic\nRF5_SDK_15.2.0_9412b96\examples\ble_peripheral\ble_app_blinky\pca10040\s132\armgcc>make
Linking target: _build/nrf52832_xxaa.out
text data bss dec hex filename
27000 164 2464 29628 73bc _build/nrf52832_xxaa.out
Preparing: _build/nrf52832_xxaa.hex
D:/Development/Tools/GNU Tools ARM Embedded/8 2018-q4-major/bin/arm-none-eabi-objcopy: _build/nrf52832_xxaa.hex 64-bit address 0x4b4fa300026000 out of range for Intel Hex file
D:/Development/Tools/GNU Tools ARM Embedded/8 2018-q4-major/bin/arm-none-eabi-objcopy:_build/nrf52832_xxaa.hex: bad value
make: *** [../../../../../../components/toolchain/gcc/Makefile.common:305: _build/nrf52832_xxaa.hex] Error 1

If I run make again after the Hex file fails it goes ahead and builds the .bin file.

D:\Development\SDKs\Nordic\nRF5_SDK_15.2.0_9412b96\examples\ble_peripheral\ble_app_blinky\pca10040\s132\armgcc>make
Preparing: _build/nrf52832_xxaa.bin
DONE nrf52832_xxaa

D:\Development\SDKs\Nordic\nRF5_SDK_15.2.0_9412b96\examples\ble_peripheral\ble_app_blinky\pca10040\s132\armgcc>

Is this expected?

I'm just coming up to speed on all this, so if I'm doing something dumb, I apologize.

Thanks.

[BDSteve]

FYI...I fell back to the version of the toolchain called out in the article/link in my first post and now the Hex file builds.

I guess I'll run with that version.

[Nathan Morsa]

It's definitely a problem with the latest toolchain. If you want something more recent: On Windows, the toolchain  6-2017-q1-update (6.3.1) doesn't have this problem (and I'm pretty sure 7.3.1 doesn't either).

Otherwise I'm hitting the same problem on Windows with gcc-arm-none-eabi-8-2018-q4-major (8.2.1), but it works on my Linux system. Using the 6.3.1 release of objcopy on the 8.2.1 output seems to work too.

[BDSteve]

Good to know, thanks.

[BDSteve]

A word to the wise (and probably weary if you've been using Eclipse + GCC ARM)...skip it and just go for Segger Embedded Studio.  I just discovered (through these forums) that it's free to Nordic customers, and there are no limitations on code size.  I wish I'd known this several days ago as I'll never get back that time I wasted on Eclipse + GCC ARM.  I would've been so much further along with my project had I known.  I had SES installed and building the examples in less than 10 minutes.

[Thomas Stenersen]

To future readers, this is an issue with arm-none-eabi-gcc 8-2018-q4 on windows. For more information: bugs.launchpad.net/.../1810274