Debugging blinky example with GNU Eclipse with SDK7.x

RE: Debugging blinky example with GNU Eclipse with SDK7.x

Nguyen Hoan Hoang — Sat, 24 Jan 2015 22:51:36 GMT

The plugins described on my blog work perfectly with both JLink and OpenOCD. I work mainly with Eclipse on OS X. Only Eclipse Luna that has issues with debug. Avoid Luna, works fine with Kepler and Mars.

RE: Debugging blinky example with GNU Eclipse with SDK7.x

Makarand K — Sat, 24 Jan 2015 17:09:26 GMT

Thanks Nguyen, let me give it a shot. But I'll leave this thread here for now, I'm getting digressed into tool chain issue than what I'm trying to build :( I'd stick to the evaluation copy of Keil uVision till I hit the 32K code limit. Hope that by that time I'd get something working with the GNU tools

The image which worked for Vidar doesn't work with gdb on my setup. The only difference I can think of is the JLink settings. Is there something you can think of that I might be able to try in this direction?

RE: Debugging blinky example with GNU Eclipse with SDK7.x

Nguyen Hoan Hoang — Sat, 24 Jan 2015 13:18:59 GMT

That's right, if Keil debug then it should also work in Eclipse. I have a blinky example on my blog. It is a pure Eclipse project not makefile. Can you try that se if it works for you. All the examples on my blog are pure Eclipse project.

RE: Debugging blinky example with GNU Eclipse with SDK7.x

Makarand K — Sat, 24 Jan 2015 04:47:51 GMT

Can't find any information like this. But if Keil can debug, then the mechanism must be same right?

RE: Debugging blinky example with GNU Eclipse with SDK7.x

Nguyen Hoan Hoang — Fri, 23 Jan 2015 21:04:12 GMT

I haven't seen the new DK. is the jlink separate or onboard ? If on board, is there a switch that allows to switch in or out the jlink ? It does not seems to connect to the target

RE: Debugging blinky example with GNU Eclipse with SDK7.x

Makarand K — Fri, 23 Jan 2015 17:10:32 GMT

doesn't help, it doesn't even hit the reset handler. I believe there is something wrong while accessing the device. when I connect the target, I read 0xffffffff at adress 0 which doesn't seem right. Do you think that's correct?

Checking target voltage...
Target voltage: 3.30 V
Listening on TCP/IP port 2331
Connecting to target...Connected to target
Waiting for GDB connection...Connected to 127.0.0.1
Reading all registers
Read 4 bytes @ address 0x00000000 (Data = 0xFFFFFFFF)
Resets core & peripherals via SYSRESETREQ & VECTRESET bit.

RE: Debugging blinky example with GNU Eclipse with SDK7.x

Nguyen Hoan Hoang — Fri, 23 Jan 2015 11:34:47 GMT

Ok, then try to set the breakpoint in the Reset function see if it stops there. From there you can check to see until where it stops working. It's the function where you found the RAM settings.

RE: Debugging blinky example with GNU Eclipse with SDK7.x

Makarand K — Fri, 23 Jan 2015 10:29:53 GMT

it's the nrf51-DK (pca10028) board. So I believe it should be xxAC (and so does the chip on the board reads)

RE: Debugging blinky example with GNU Eclipse with SDK7.x

Nguyen Hoan Hoang — Fri, 23 Jan 2015 08:16:04 GMT

Yes, looks good. I see that you set the chip is xxAC. Which board are you using ? The xxAC has 32KB of RAM, the xxAA has 16KB. Make sure you have the correct chip.

RE: Debugging blinky example with GNU Eclipse with SDK7.x

Makarand K — Fri, 23 Jan 2015 05:07:14 GMT

This is what the gcc_startup_nrf51.s says:

/* Make sure ALL RAM banks are powered on */
    MOVS    R1, #NRF_POWER_RAMONx_RAMxON_ONMODE_Msk
    
    LDR     R0, =NRF_POWER_RAMON_ADDRESS
    LDR     R2, [R0]
    ORRS    R2, R1
    STR     R2, [R0]

LDR     R0, =NRF_POWER_RAMONB_ADDRESS
LDR     R2, [R0]
ORRS    R2, R1
STR     R2, [R0]

Does this look good ?

RE: Debugging blinky example with GNU Eclipse with SDK7.x

Nguyen Hoan Hoang — Fri, 23 Jan 2015 05:00:18 GMT

Looks like the RAM is not enabled. Check in the startup code see if it enables the RAM.

RE: Debugging blinky example with GNU Eclipse with SDK7.x

Makarand K — Fri, 23 Jan 2015 03:40:19 GMT

No, it's just the blinky app. If I directly flash the .out file, it worked fine. My main issue is with the debugger. First it doesn't stop at the main() routine as indicated in debug configuration. Second when I hit run, it seems to get SIGTRAP as I'd shown in the screenshots above. Now if I stop the debugger and switch-off/switch-on the board I see the lights blinking! First I doubted if I'd accidently flashed the code. But even after erasing the whole flash with nRF studio, I could repeat the whole behavior, so looks like somehow the flash is getting programmed instead of debugger taking over

RE: Debugging blinky example with GNU Eclipse with SDK7.x

Nguyen Hoan Hoang — Thu, 22 Jan 2015 18:44:22 GMT

Is it a BLE application ? If it is then you must flash in the softdevice (s110, s120, or ...) first. It looks like you don't have it.

RE: Debugging blinky example with GNU Eclipse with SDK7.x

Makarand K — Thu, 22 Jan 2015 17:36:28 GMT

Thank you so much. I can get the application running with Mars. But the execution doesn't halt at the breakpoint at main() Neither can I single step. Is there some settings I'm missing ? I'm using the application which comes with examples in SDK7.0 given by Nordic

RE: Debugging blinky example with GNU Eclipse with SDK7.x

Nguyen Hoan Hoang — Thu, 22 Jan 2015 16:29:34 GMT

To work with Eclipse, go here embeddedsoftdev.blogspot.ca/.../ehal-nrf51.html Luna is not recommended. Use Kepler or Mars.

RE: Debugging blinky example with GNU Eclipse with SDK7.x

Makarand K — Thu, 22 Jan 2015 16:18:08 GMT

I've the above two changes in place. Still no luck. Here are the portions of makefile that point to these flags:

#flags common to all targets
CFLAGS  = -DNRF51
CFLAGS += -DBSP_DEFINES_ONLY
CFLAGS += -DBOARD_PCA10028
CFLAGS += -mcpu=cortex-m0
CFLAGS += -mthumb -mabi=aapcs --std=gnu99
CFLAGS += -Wall -Werror -O0 -g3
CFLAGS += -mfloat-abi=soft
# keep every function in separate section. This will allow linker to dump unused functions
CFLAGS += -ffunction-sections -fdata-sections -fno-strict-aliasing
#CFLAGS += -flto -fno-builtin

# keep every function in separate section. This will allow linker to dump unused functions
LDFLAGS += -Xlinker -Map=$(LISTING_DIRECTORY)/$(OUTPUT_FILENAME).map
LDFLAGS += -mthumb -mabi=aapcs -L $(TEMPLATE_PATH) -T$(LINKER_SCRIPT)
LDFLAGS += -mcpu=cortex-m0
# let linker to dump unused sections
LDFLAGS += -Wl,--gc-sections
# use newlib in nano version
LDFLAGS += --specs=nano.specs -lc -lnosys

# Assembler flags
ASMFLAGS += -x assembler-with-cpp
ASMFLAGS += -DNRF51
ASMFLAGS += -DBSP_DEFINES_ONLY
ASMFLAGS += -DBOARD_PCA10028
#default target - first one defined
default: clean nrf51422_xxac

I see a SIGTRAP after running the code (please see the screen shot)

RE: Debugging blinky example with GNU Eclipse with SDK7.x

Vidar Berg — Thu, 22 Jan 2015 09:00:01 GMT

Makefile.common is decprecated in SDK v.7+, and the project makefiles are now standalone. Some of the other changes are that they no longer have the debug target and it's compiled as release with optimization by default. In order to enable debugging you need to replace the -O3 option with -O0 and add -g3 in cflags to include debug symbols. The CFLAG variable should therefore be set like this CFLAGS += -O0 -g3.

You also need to comment out the -flto optimization. Otherwise the debug symbols will be removed from the compile: #CFLAGS += -flto -fno-builtin