SDK 15.3 cannot program default bootloader

RE: SDK 15.3 cannot program default bootloader

Hung Bui — Thu, 11 Apr 2019 08:30:31 GMT

Hi Tom,

It's started from S132 v6.1.1 same with S140 v6.1.1 . The change happens between MBR v2.2 and v2.4.x. You can check the release note of the softdevice to find the version of the MBR.

However, the MBR v2.4.x is backward compatible with earlier version, meaning if it couldn't find the bootloader address in flash, it will check the bootloader address in UICR.

RE: SDK 15.3 cannot program default bootloader

Tom — Thu, 11 Apr 2019 00:31:27 GMT

Which SD versions have this new MBR which uses MBR_BOOTLOADER_ADDR instead of NRF_UICR_BOOTLOADER_START_ADDRESS?

RE: SDK 15.3 cannot program default bootloader

Hung Bui — Wed, 20 Mar 2019 17:00:38 GMT

Hi,

Just want to give some more context about this issue.

In SDK v15.3 we changed the bootloader start address register (NRF_UICR_BOOTLOADER_START_ADDRESS) from NRF_UICR_BASE + 0x14 in the UICR to MBR_BOOTLOADER_ADDR (at 0xFF8) in the MBR.

So to write the start address of the bootloader, you need to write into the MBR (This is to help improving security for the bootloader)

This causes the issue that you experienced. nrfjprog will have trouble writing to the MBR/Softdevice area. And if you use --sectorerase with nrjfprog it will erase the MBR make the chip firmware stops working.

The workaround is to do an erase all, write the MBR/Softdevice and then flash the bootloader without sector erase.

If you don't want to do an erase all every time you write the bootloader, you can comment out what inside nrf_bootloader_info.c on the second time you write the bootloader so that the programmer would not write to the MBR.

Or you can merge the MBR/softdevice to your application and then flash with sectorerase.

RE: SDK 15.3 cannot program default bootloader

Jefferson — Wed, 13 Mar 2019 20:13:57 GMT

Thank you. I can program using nRFConnect.

RE: SDK 15.3 cannot program default bootloader

Marjeris Romero — Wed, 13 Mar 2019 14:53:47 GMT

Hi,

nRFgo studio is deprecated. Please use nRFConnect for desktop instead. See also this thread.