Device enters and stays in bootloader mode on start

RE: Device enters and stays in bootloader mode on start

Tibor Kakonyi — Fri, 09 Apr 2021 12:58:29 GMT

Thank you very much, Einar! Using --bl-settings-version 2 solved the problem :)

RE: Device enters and stays in bootloader mode on start

Einar Thorsrud — Fri, 09 Apr 2021 12:18:00 GMT

Hi Tibor,

It is odd that you see a difference between the debug and normal bootloader. However, this printout makes me spot a detail I did not see before. You specify --bl-settings-version 1, but the current version is 2 and based on the SoftDevice version I assume you are using a recent SDK version. Can you specify --bl-settings-version 2 instead when you generate the setting page?

Einar

RE: Device enters and stays in bootloader mode on start

Tibor Kakonyi — Fri, 09 Apr 2021 09:24:33 GMT

Hi Einar,

First, I simply tried adding separate hex files to nRF Connect Programmer instead of using mergehex, but the problem still existed.

Then, as you proposed, I changed to the debug bootloader project to get more info - and for some strange reason, the process is working correctly with it. I don't know what's happening, everything else (firmware app, bootloader settings page, SoftDevice) is the same, do you have any idea?

However, the non-working bootloader version has some basic RTT logging too, let me copy-paste its output here, might be useful:
00> <info> app: Inside main
00>
00> <info> nrf_dfu_settings: Old settings page detected. Upgrading info.
00>
00> <info> nrf_dfu_settings: Backing up settings page to address 0x7E000.
00>
00> <info> app: No firmware to activate.
00>
00> <warning> app: Boot validation failed. App is invalid.
00>
00> <info> nrf_bootloader_wdt: WDT is not enabled
00>
00> <info> app: Entering DFU mode.

Thank you,
Tibor

RE: Device enters and stays in bootloader mode on start

Tibor Kakonyi — Thu, 08 Apr 2021 05:56:34 GMT

Hi Einar,

Thanks a lot for your reply!

"Do you include the settings page in your merged hex file? I do not see it listed where you copy--pasted the mergehex commands. If not, then it would explain what you are seeing."

Sorry, I accidentally copy-pasted the same command twice. It should look like this:

mergehex --merge s132_nrf52_7.2.0_softdevice.hex ble_app_buttonless_dfu_pca10040_s132 secure_bootloader_ble_s132_pca10040.hex --output temp_merg.hex
mergehex --merge temp_merg.hex bl_settings_page.hex --output dfu_target_firmware.hex

mergehex broken into 2 parts, including the bootloader settings page too.

I'll try out the proposed solutions as soon as I can.

Thanks,
Tibor

RE: Device enters and stays in bootloader mode on start

Einar Thorsrud — Wed, 07 Apr 2021 15:43:54 GMT

Hi Tibor,

Do you include the settings page in your merged hex file? I do not see it listed where you copy--pasted the mergehex commands. If not, then it would explain what you are seeing.

If the above is not the problem, then perhaps you are seeing a known issue with the latest mergehex (10.12.1) where it can create corrupt images. Can you revert to an older version and see if the issue persist? Alternatively add all separate hex files to nRF Connect Programmer instead of using mergehex?

If the issue persists then it would be good if you can test with the debug bootloader project (suffixed _debug) which includes RTT logging and upload the log here. In most cases the RTT log gives a good indication of where to look.

Einar