Mesh does not work on nRF52840 Dongle

[Archiet]

Hi there!

I have run light switch example for Mesh demo but no activity could be found via nRF Mesh app even my dongles have never been provsioned.The version of SDK and SDK for Mesh is 17.0.2 and V5.0.0 respectively,   PCA10056 is changed PCA10059 before building the solution. I have followed those posts in the community but still not able to make it works. Do I miss something? Any assistance/suggestion are welcome!!!

Cheers!

[Hung Bui]

Hi, 
How did you program the PCA10059 dongle ? 
If you program it via the NRF Connect Programmer (which use DFU to update the dongle, not directly via SWD interface) then the board only have the MBR and the application. YOu would need to program the softdevice and then program the application. 

Note that the dongle is not the best tool for testing mesh. The reason is that when it's provisioned it's not possible to erase bond information unless you write code on the dongle to do that. The reason is that the DFU update wouldn't clear the application data, hence the provisioning data will remains even after  you update it to new firmware. 

If you want to test mesh on the dongle, I would suggest to solder the header P1 on the dongle to flash it directly via SWD interface from a programmer. Make sure you do an erase all to delete the bootloader on the dongle. 

[Archiet]

Hi Hung!

Yes, I have also uploaded softdevice 140 via nRF Connect programmer. After the process, I could see LED1 and 2 are ON but nothing could be found on nRF Mesh app. Since this is the first time I run this example, my dongle should not be provisioned that's why I am confused.

[Hung Bui]

Please make sure your firmware supports PB-GATT to provision from mobile app. 

There could be a chance that the code assert somewhere. But without any logging or capability to debug it's really hard to tell what went wrong. Any leftover application data can cause a crash because the flash is not clean.
I would strongly suggest to solder the P1 header and use a debugger on it. 

[Archiet]

Hi Hung!

I am using the server firmware from light switch example. This firmware is fine when I use PCA10056 but PCA10059.

When I use dongle, I follow the procedure from this post https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/nordic/short-range-guides/b/getting-started/posts/nrf52840-dongle-programming-tutorial. 

Before diving into P1 header and debugger, I would like to make sure I have done enough, or do I miss some key steps?

[Hung Bui]

No I don't think so. It should work. But I mentioned, it depends on what you have on the dongle previously it might not work due to dirty application data flash area. 
You don't need to solder the header on all of your dongle. You just need to develop a working example on one dongle with the header and then you can use the normal way to program all other dongles.