HARDFAULT handler call

[Mikael]

Hello,

we've got a quite unpredictable issue with a hardfault call : actually this is in this function call : app_error_fault_handler (in app_error_weak.c file)

We use SDK 17.02 and bootloader.
this is a custom board.

The issue appears when : BLE is advertising and lora data is sent (but not every time, this is a necessary but not enough condition).
We use as well timer to mange uart transfer from another device which send the data to lora, timer for ble and a timer tick.
All of these timers are created with app_timer_create() function.

Actually, as the issue is not easy to reproduce I suspect that the issue is something linked with a timing issue of one or many of this timer (it is not a code that I have developped, so not so easy to give more details).

When the issue occured, then we are in __WEAK void app_error_fault_handler(uint32_t id, uint32_t pc, uint32_t info), with the following :

- id = 1  so this mean NRF_FAULT_ID_SD_ASSERT : NRF_LOG_ERROR("SOFTDEVICE: ASSERTION FAILED");

- pc = 0x00012976 ==> seems in soft device part

- info : 0

hereunder the cpu registers, sp is 0x2000fd70

hereunder the stack :

the word 0xCAFEBABE seems to be a magic number to maybe help you to debug critical issue?

the callstack is not really help me :

last, the SCB arm registers contains this : where 0xE000ED2C address contains value 0x40000000 which means in "ARMv7-M Architecture
Reference Manual" page 612 HardFault Status Register, HFSR, Purpose Shows the cause of any HardFault.

FORCED, bit[30] Indicates that a fault with configurable priority has been escalated to a HardFault exception,
because it could not be made active, because of priority or because it was disabled:
0 No priority escalation has occurred.
1 Processor has escalated a configurable-priority exception to HardFault.

Hope I give you enough details to help me in my research to find the root cause issue.

Many thanks

Regards

Mikael

[Aubin]

Hi,

I recently faced the same "SOFTDEVICE: ASSERTION FAILED" error when using both BLE and LoRa on an ISP4520 chip (based on nRF52832 and SX1261 chip).

The problem came from the CRITICAL_SECTION which mask both peripheral and SoftDevice IT resulting in "SOFTDEVICE: ASSERTION FAILED".

This is thus caused by a conflict between the BLE SoftDevice and the way LoRa is implemented in the module ISP4520. I think BLE SoftDevice and LoRa stack are not meant to be used together.

The LoRa stack CRITICAL_SECTION should not mask SoftDevice IT. A solution is to replace:

void BoardCriticalSectionBegin(uint32_t *mask)

{

    *mask = __get_PRIMASK( );

    __disable_irq( );

}

void BoardCriticalSectionEnd(uint32_t *mask)

{

    __set_PRIMASK( *mask );

}

By:

#include "app_util_platform.h"

static uint8_t __CR_NESTED = 0; 

void BoardCriticalSectionBegin(uint32_t *mask)

{

    app_util_critical_region_enter(&__CR_NESTED);

}

void BoardCriticalSectionEnd(uint32_t *mask)

{

    app_util_critical_region_exit(__CR_NESTED); 

}

in the file board.c provided by Insight SiP for module ISP4520.

Using that, SoftDevice IT are not masked, and SoftDevice does not fall in "SOFTDEVICE: ASSERTION FAILED".

I hope this will help you solve your problem,

Have a nice day,

Aubin

[Mikael]

Hi Aubin,

Thank you very much for this valuable information !

Actually we were working as well with ISP4520.

We will use your solution.

Thanks again.

Mikael

[Mikael]

Thanks you Sigurd,

following support from Aubin is very interesting and will probably resolved my issue.

regards

Mikael