problems upgrading nrfConnect for Desktop from 2.6 to 2.7 and higher on LInux

[LM Feeney]

Hi,

Upgrading from nrfConnect for Desktop from v 2.6  to v 2.7 and higher and its associated apps seems to hang on Linux (ubuntu 16.04). 'strace' suggests that the problem may be related to fusefs and appImage.

I originally installed the development environment for the 9160DK using the 'Getting Started' app for nrfConnect 2.6. The 'LTE monitor' app worked as expected with at_client, as did asset_tracker.

When nrfConnect offered to upgrade to v 2.7 and later to v 3.0, I accepted both times. I also upgraded the 'Getting Started' app, via the 'add/remove apps' menu. With both 2.7 and 3.0, I observe the following failure:

Launching the  'Getting Started' app (now at v 1.0.0), hangs with a blank window and spinning blue icon. The 'LTE monitor' app (still at v 0.9.0, since I didn't upgrade it) also hangs with a blank window and spinning blue icon.

Returning to nrfConnect v 2.6 lets the 'LTE monitor' (still at v 0.9.0) app work again, but the 'Getting Started' app (now at v.1.0.0) still hangs with the spinning blue icon.

Running strace on nrfConnect v 3.0 and running the 'Getting Started' app (v 1.0.0 ) shows a mount permission error and a /bin/fusermount error.

Given the EPERM error, I tried running nrfConnect as root. This hangs hard, with strace showing a tight loop of read/write calls between  the  AppImage and /dev/fuse.

Any suggestions?

[Martin Lesund]

Hi Laura,

Unfortunately, Ubuntu 16.04 is too old to run nRF Connect v3.0.0.

I highly recommend that you upgrade your OS to e.g. Ubuntu 18.04.

You can confirm this by checking the dev. console when the window open is stuck at a white screen by ctrl+shift+i then you should see an error about libstdc++ required version not found.

Best regards,
Martin L.

[LM Feeney]

Thanks for the info. 

The nrfConnect apps are still documented as supported for Ubuntu 14.04, 16.04 and 18.04. So it would probably be helpful to update the documentation.  See e.g. https://infocenter.nordicsemi.com/index.jsp?topic=%2Fug_nc_programmer%2FUG%2Fnrf_connect_programmer%2Fncp_introduction.html

The issue does not seem to be local my installation, as a similar issue has been posted to the ubuntu support forums. So it might be helpful to contribute there as well.  See e.g. https://askubuntu.com/q/1155133

I don't think many developers would expect ugrading an app to require a full-scale OS upgrade to their entire development environment, without at least some warning.  Especially if "downgrade is disallowed" for the app. 

So I think we'll try to work around this locally. 

Laura