Getting started with nRF91

[cmag]

I am testing a nRF9160DK board. I am located in Italy, so LTE-M SIMs would not work.

I have received some NB-IOT SIMs from TIM/Olivetti; I found a compiled sample "at_client.hex" on your site and it seems to be working, even if the programmer app said "Device type unknown" after programming.

I assume that LTE green means that NB-IOT goto connected. The connection information looks fine too.

"Telecom Italia" is the former name of TIM.

I installed the whole toolchain following instructions in the Getting Started Assistant (I had to update some references in the requirements.txt files) and compiled the Asset Tracker application but it seems unable to connect.

I verified that:

/* Set network mode to Narrowband-IoT */
static const char network_mode[] = "AT%XSYSTEMMODE=0,1,0,0";

is active in lte_lc.c

I suspect something is not fine in my setup because I am unable to load the other  project for the "nrf_desktop" application choosing either nrf9160_pca10090 or the ns version.

Do you have a compiled hex of the asset_tracker application that is expected to run with NB-IOT so that I can understand if the problem is with the SIM or the toolchain.

I have installed arm_segger_embedded_studio_v420a_win_x64_nordic from the link in getting started; It offers to upgrade to SEGGER Embedded Studio for ARM version 4.22; should I perform the upgrade?

[MJD093]

You do not need to build only a non-secure application. When erasing the nRF9160, you will erase both the secure and non-secure applications. The secure and non-secure applications are merged and flashed together as merged.hex.

If you wish to see the non-secure .hex file, this one will be found in at build/zephyr/zephyr.hex whereas the secure application .hex file is located at build/spm/zephyr/zephyr.hex.

I would not recommend flashing the non-secure on it's own as the secure application is the secure partition manager that configures the device from flash partitions to peripherals. I haven't tried to do this nor would I do this so I have no idea what that would do but most likely result in error.

[cmag]

If I select Board name: nrf9160_pca10090 (without NS) I get:

I can only generate the project for the NS version.

The error message seems to be:

Error: Aborting due to non-whitelisted Kconfig warning 'warning: the value '' is invalid for
FLIP_INPUT (defined at C:/Projects/ncs/nrf/applications/asset_tracker/Kconfig:116), which has type
int -- assignment ignored'. Note: If this warning doesn't point to an actual problem, you can add it
to the whitelist at the top of C:/Projects/ncs/zephyr/scripts/kconfig/kconfig.py.

If I whitelist the warning, the projects is generated, but does not compile.

Later today a new blank PC will arrive to us; I will try installing the toolchain there to check if there is some incompatible software on my PC (I already cleaned all Python libraries before installing).

[MJD093]

Yes, all applications will built for the non-secure region, I don't use the SES at all (I'm a command line user) but as the version of the SES IDE is a Nordic modded version, it will expect that you are building for non-secure versions of the nrf9160. You should not build this application for anything other than non-secure. The secure application will be built in the build folder along with the non-secure application before being merged into a single .hex file. All the user must do is specify that the application is being built for the non-secure region of flash and the secure region of flash will be made along side the non-secure application.

From the experience I have had with Zephyr, whitelisting is not advised when using someone else's firmware. However from that error it would appear that the custom configuration variable FLIP_INPUT isn't assigned. Looking at it's definition in the Kconfig file, it uses the board designation to assign a value to FLIP_INPUT. It needs the board to be configured as nrf9160_pca10090ns or nrf9160_pca20035ns (Thingy:91). It would appear that trying to use the secure board designation has caused this error.

[cmag]

I have tried install everything on my Linux PC at home; I can rebuild and get some life out of the unit:

Fullscreen ASSET_MANAGER_DUMP.txt Download

at+CFUN=4
OK
AT%XSYSTEMMODE=0,1,0,0
OK
AT+CFUN=1
OK
AT+CFUN?
+CFUN: 1
OK
AT+CGSN=1
+CGSN: "352656100044349"
OK
AT+CGMI
Nordic Semiconductor ASA
OK
AT+CGMM
nRF9160-SICA
OK
AT+CGMR
mfw_nrf9160_1.0.1
OK
AT+CEMODE?
+CEMODE: 0
OK
AT%XCBAND=?
%XCBAND: (1,2,3,4,5,8,12,13,17,19,20,25,26,28,66)
OK
AT+CMEE?
+CMEE: 0
OK
AT+CMEE=1
OK
AT+CNEC?
+CNEC: 0
OK
AT+CNEC=24
OK
AT+CGEREP?
+CGEREP: 0,0
OK
AT+CGDCONT?
OK
AT+CGACT?
OK
AT+CGEREP=1
OK
AT+CIND=1,1,1
OK
AT+CEREG=2
OK
AT+CEREG?
+CEREG: 2,0,"8901","07AA6E50",9OK
AT%CESQ=1
OK
AT+CESQ
+CESQ: 99,99,255,255,255,50
OK
AT%XSIM=1
OK
AT%XSIM?
%XSIM: 0
OK

I am sure I recompiled, because I modified the start string "ASSET-TRACKER Application started"

Anyway I still fail to connect to the network after recompiling. Also the other sample application (/home/cmag/projects/ncs/nrf/applications/nrf_desktop/CMakeLists.txt) fails to load in the IDE:

CMake Error at /home/cmag/projects/ncs/nrf/cmake/boilerplate.cmake:17 (message):

board nrf9160_pca10090ns is not supported

Call Stack (most recent call first):

CMakeLists.txt:28 (include)

[Håkon Alseth]

If the application fails to load in the IDE, try re-importing the project with a different build folder (or delete the one already present in the application folder)

The former logs that you have shows the CEREG output to be registered to the network successfully, but the latest log gives this output:

+CEREG: 2,0,"8901","07AA6E50",9OK

This indicates that you are not connected to the network, as shown in the CEREG documentation:

https://infocenter.nordicsemi.com/topic/ref_at_commands/REF/at_commands/nw_service/cereg_read.html?cp=2_1_6_8_1

Where 0 is:

0 – Not registered. User Equipment (UE) is not currently searching for an operator to register to.

 

As mentioned; previous logs show that you have been successfully associated with the network.

 

Kind regards,

Håkon