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nrf51 DK using Keil: Error: Flash Download failed - "Cortex-M0"

brianreinhold

It is amazing how common this error is - there must be 100 posts. Yet none solve the problem and none explain it. It suggests that there is some serious work needed to improve the error message. This error message is almost as bad as saying Error: Flash Download failed.

I have tried two SDKs with my new nrf51 DK for nrf51822: SDK 10.0.0 and SDK 8.1.0 Both give the same result

I get as far as being able to build the project (BTLE peripheral health thermometer), flash the SoftDevice, and then when I try to flash the actual hts HEX file I get

Erase Failed

Error: Flash Download failed - "Cortex-M0"

Now there are many perturbations one starts to try to solve this ubiquitous bug.

  • Turn off erasing in the flash config. Well, big deal. Now I get just the Error: Flash Download failed - "Cortex-M0" message.
  • Found one needed to migrate to new project formats with 8.1.0 - cost 6 hrs but in the end, same result.
  • Try changing the address bounds (which are the same for the SoftDevice flash and the hts flash). No difference (seems to be ignored)
  • Use nrfConnect to erase the entire chip and install the SoftDevice - no change
  • I tried to use nrfConnect to install the hts HEX on top of SoftDevice but could never figure out how to set it up in the file memory window
  • I've seen comments about incompatible SoftDevice and SDKs so I have tried a couple of SDK versions - none worked so far (at least when using s110 - I think I got one to work using s120 in SDK 10.0.0 but I need s110)

This stuff should work out of the box. I had no such issues with nrf52. What is going on?

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  • 0

    The most common issue with this error when using softdevice is, flashing wrong softdevice version with the application.

    Every softdevice version, expects the application to start at a particular start address. If your application is compiled to use the memory address reserved for softdevice, then the flashing would fail.

    Which version of softdevice did you flash? did you check the application start address to match the size of the softdevice given in its release notes?

  • 0 in reply to Susheel Nuguru

    I used the values provided in the SDK project examples. I did play around with them but to no avail. I figured I would be wasting my time since the example projects were designed for the given SoftDevice. Recall, I just bought the DK, downloaded the SDK, and went to the hts example and tried to install it onto the DK. Softdevice yes, hts no.

    At the moment I have deleted 8.1.0 and now am trying 12.3.0. Going to give up on s110 for the time being. I just so desperately want to get SOMETHING to actually work.

  • 0 in reply to brianreinhold

    it should be very simple to just flash the softdevice and the application of the SDK. If it does not work, then there must be something on the DK that is stopping it. 

    Can you try to use command line tool "nrfjprog" and do and erase "nrfjprog -e" and even better is to recover it from an unknown state "nrfjprog --recover".

    With empty flash, the examples should work out of the box given the correct softdevice is flashed.

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  • 0 in reply to brianreinhold

    it should be very simple to just flash the softdevice and the application of the SDK. If it does not work, then there must be something on the DK that is stopping it. 

    Can you try to use command line tool "nrfjprog" and do and erase "nrfjprog -e" and even better is to recover it from an unknown state "nrfjprog --recover".

    With empty flash, the examples should work out of the box given the correct softdevice is flashed.

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