nRF51 Builds, loads, does not debug

RE: nRF51 Builds, loads, does not debug

matterama — Tue, 25 Nov 2014 18:18:24 GMT

Hi Petter,

I believe there were multiple things going on that have now been resolved by reinstalling packs in Keil. There is still the outstanding strangeness that if you switch the device to the 51822 in Keil, build a project, then switch back to the 51422 and compile, Keil tools no longer see the nRF51 j-Link! I have no idea why these are tied to each other.

Anyway, we'll close this one.

For anyone else looking at this link, my recommendation is to follow the steps carefully, as the Keil tool might have some strangeness in it. Here is a summary:

Download / extract all the tools (SDK, SoftDevice(s), RFgo Studio)
Run RFgo Studio and program the SoftDevice you want to use (S110 for example)
Open Keil pack manager and copy some examples using the pack structure. Use the S110 examples since you loaded the SoftDevice.
Open a project, compile.
Download / debug should work

RE: nRF51 Builds, loads, does not debug

Petter Myhre — Tue, 25 Nov 2014 08:26:14 GMT

It seems you are not programming the SoftDevice before you program your application.

Blinky doesn't require a SoftDevice to run, but you can run Blinky with the SoftDevice.

You just need to select the correct version. I see from your project path that you have selected a version that works with the S110 SoftDevice, then the S110 SoftDevice must be on the chip.

If your first goal is to run blinky without the SoftDevice use the blinky_blank_pca10028 project, not the blinky_s110_pca10028. Be sure to have a clean chip (do an erase all in nRFgo Studio). If you try to flash blinky_blank when the SoftDevice is present you will get "Error: Flash Download failed - Cortex M0", because you are trying to flash your project on top of the SoftDevice.

I'm not sure what your debug problems are, but please let me know if they are still there after you have tried my suggestions.

RE: nRF51 Builds, loads, does not debug

matterama — Mon, 24 Nov 2014 22:22:01 GMT

Petter.....

Mixed results here, please check my notes and question:

I loaded up the softdevice 7.1, which I believed I had done previously. The BLE sample (the simplest HID Mouse example) almost started to work. Debugging was still flaky / not really working. There were often reported conflicts with the "Error: Flash Download failed - Cortex M0" issue.

I had to clean out the original SDK examples from Keil and start from scratch. At one point, I had built the projects with the device selection as the nRF51822. It turned out that building with that variant, then returning to the nRF51422 is what allowed the nRFgo to download the hex correctly, but no debugging worked. When I cleaned out the old builds, things became more stable.

Here are my questions:

Why would building the nRF51822 variant (NOT using it as the hex, just simply building it in Keil) affect the download / debug capability at all? Does this make any sense?
Even though the Blinky code does not use the SoftDevice, does the evaluation board have to have a SoftDevice loaded at least once before debugging will operate?

I'm still trying to determine what the exact process is. My first attempt at all of this was a straight blinky load, no soft device, etc. and I encountered these problems. I can continue developing at this point, but am worried about the unknowns in the toolset that I've seen so far that might bite me later on...

RE: nRF51 Builds, loads, does not debug

matterama — Mon, 24 Nov 2014 17:52:11 GMT

I will look at this.

My understanding is that the SoftDevice was not necessary for the Blinky code though?

RE: nRF51 Builds, loads, does not debug

Petter Myhre — Mon, 24 Nov 2014 15:23:25 GMT

Have you programmed the SoftDevice? Section 6.1.4 in the user guide.