No response from master emulator

[gbrown1966]

hello,

We have a product in production using nRF51422 and we are scaling up volume in a new manufacturing facility.

The functional tester stations require use of Master Control panel in order to do legacy DFU of application firmware prior to packing and shipping.

We are trying to replicate multiple test stations to handle large volume but are having significant issues with MCP reporting the  'No response from master emulator' issue.

This has been reported many times but following all of the previous posts and suggestions concerning j-link driver versions, MCP versions etc nothing can be made to work.

We cannon re-engineer the product to use later SDK/ programming tools and are stuck with legacy DFU therefore we must use MCP.

Can you please offer a solution to this problem? What MCP version do we need to use? what hardware (dongle or SDK)? what j-link driver?

We will implement Anything as long as we can have a working legacy DFU on the production line.

Please help as this is a serious issue affecting manufacture of our product.

kind regards,

Geoff

[tesc]

Hi,

There are a number of known issues with Master Control Panel, and I will try to list them all here in the hopes it is sufficient for getting your setup up and running:

First of all, if you do have it up and running on one test station or another computer, from previously, please check version of Master Control Panel, J-Link drivers, and installed firmware for the interface MCU on the Dongle or DK used for that setup. Also, version number and type of DK / Dongle. Interface MCU firmware version is checked with the program J-Link Configurator, and is listed as a date and time of day. That exact combination of software, hardware, drivers and firmware versions should then be good, provided that the old setup was good.

If you do not have such a setup, or replicating exactly the full setup is not possible or does not work as intended:

• Latest version of Master Control Panel is v3.10.0.14. (Installers: mastercontrolpanel.3.10.0.14.x86.msi / mastercontrolpanel.3.10.0.14.x64.msi)
• Please note there might be an issue with 32bit/64bit version; you should use the same version as you use J-Link driver (and, from what I understand, preferably the same as your OS, which today I would be very surprised if was not 64 bit.) x86 is the 32 bit version, and x64 is the 64 bit version.
• Supported dongles: PCA10000 and PCA10031 dongles (nRF51 Dongle).
• Supported boards: PCA10001 and PCA10028 boards (nRF51 EK and nRF51 DK). Note that if using EK or DK, you must connect P0.30 to ground for the MEFW firmware to work.
• J-Link Driver/Firmware: From what I can tell, MCP v3.10.0.14 was released end of August 2015, which means before launch it was tested against the J-Link driver and firmware from around that time. Unfortunately I do not know which exact version. There was, around 2016-2017 if I recall correctly, several J-Link firmware versions that worked badly with the USB to UART functionality on the interface MCU of our DKs and Dongles. Selecting J-Link Software and Documentation Pack from those years may be quite hit-and-miss, but specific versions stated to be good in other DevZone threads should still be good. However: Please note you should use corresponding J-Link driver (on host computer) _and_ J-Link firmware (on interface MCU on DK or Dongle). Updating the firmware is done using J-Link Configurator of the same version as the J-Link Driver to use. Versions back to 2015 are available from Segger web page: J-Link Software and Documentation Pack.
• There has been some issues with MCP not recognizing the Master Emulator connectivity firmware (MEFW), or, failing to install the firmware. Things to try then:
  • Erase flash on the nRF51 on DK or board. Use nrfjprog from nRF command line tools with command "nrfjprog --eraseall" from the command line. (Or nRF Connect for Desktop Programmer app, if you prefer a GUI program.)
  • Program the MEFW manually, also using nrfjprog (or programmer app.)
  • MEFW 0.11.0 should be used for dongles version 2.1 and higher, and for DKs version 1.0 and higher.
• The interface MCU firmware (J-Link firmware) has sometimes entered a state where serial communication stops between PC and nRF UART. More so for particular firmware versions (hence some versions are considered "good" and some are considered "bad"). In all cases, physically resetting the Dongle or DK forces the interface MCU to boot (and thus enter a "good" state). From our experience the board or dongle is good shortly after such a reset, but as time (and communication) goes on, the risk of interface MCU UART bridging hanging increases. We are not sure if this is due to time passed or due to amount of data transferred, as the two are generally correlated. For our test setups using Master Emulator we used controllable USB hubs where power can be switched off and on programatically, for resetting boards before starting a new test. Similarly, when using Master Emulator for MCP, such a reset can be a preemptive measure for preventing hangs during the DFU procedure.

Please let me know if the above helps, or if you need further assistance.

Regards,
Terje