Programmer 2.0 is broken in nRF Connect for Desktop v3.8.0

Programmer 2.0 is broken in nRF Connect for Desktop v3.8.0

Very often it does not detect connected devices, even if I disconnect and reconnect the nRF9160DK which is also used as a programmer. When I click the SELECT DEVICE button I see a link to find Nordic devices, even though I have both nRF9160dk and Thingy:91 attached over USB. Reconnecting the devices does not help. Sometimes with no devices connected, I see Unknown as a listed device. The Programmer also stops responding often on a white screen, at the same time, nRF Connect for Desktop v3.8.0 and the Toolchain Manager v0.10.0 may also freeze on a white screen. Restarting the tools sometimes helps, sometimes it doesn't and I have to do it several times, disconnecting the USB cables until it eventually works. Once a device is selected and erased, if I click the Eject button, then program the device using Segger Embedded Studio, then stop the debugging session, switch the key on the board which toggles between nRF9160 and nRF52840, then connect the Programmer again, it shows the previously selected CPU. I need to restart all tools until the correct CPU is shown. The broken behaviour is consistent between Windows 10 21H1 and macOS Big Sur 11.6.1. With the previous version of Programmer, which had the controls on the right side, I have never experienced any of these issues.

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  • Hi,

    In the meantime, a temporary workaround is to downgrade to 3.7 and install app versions compatible with 3.7:

    1. Download the latest 3.7 version of nRF Connect for Desktop from https://www.nordicsemi.com/Products/Development-tools/nRF-Connect-for-desktop/Download?lang=en#infotabs (for macOS this is 3.7.2, for Windows and Linux 3.7.1).
    2. After starting nRF Connect for Desktop 3.7 a prompt will come up about the 3.8 upgrade. Click “No” on this.
    3. In the Settings, click on “Add source”, enter the URL http://developer.nordicsemi.com/.pc-tools/nrfconnect-apps/3.7-apps/apps.json and click “Add”.
    4. Back in the list of all apps, all apps should show up twice now, one with “official” below them and one with “3.7 compatible apps” below them. If you want to hide the incompatible versions, click on “Filter” and deselect “Official”.
    5. Install the apps you need in the old versions and use them.

    I will let you know when the issue is fixed, or if I have any other updates.

    Best regards,

    Marte

  • Hi,

    Our developers have found that having a JLink device, such as JLink Lite or JLink Plus debuggers, connected to your computer without the device being connected to anything (DK/SoC), will cause this issue. This will be fixed in a new release of nRF Connect for Desktop. I will notify you when this is released. Until then, their solution is to disconnect all JLink devices that are not connected to anything.

    Best regards,

    Marte

  • Thanks, Marte! It is very good knowing that there is an official downgrade option, considering the quality and reliability of the nRF Connect SDK tools from Nordic has been very low with obvious bugs and issues that are easy to notice even on the first run or which break the build process completely. Hence my recommendation to Nordic: I see you have great ideas, but please make your tools reliable and stop releasing broken tools!

  • I used a j-Trace 7 months ago. I no longer have access to any Segger hardware, apart from what comes on nRF9160DK which alone is sufficient to reproduce all issues on both Windows and Mac.

  • Hi,

    Thank you for the feedback, I will forward it to the developers.

    Do you have any other programs using JLink devices open?

    Since you are still experiencing this issue with only the nRF9160 DK connected, your issue might be caused by something else. Our developers found that there was also an issue with enumeration timeout, but this has been very hard to reproduce as it does not happen often. They are working on solutions for this as well, and there will be a temporary fix in the next release. However, it is difficult to gather information about this when they are not able to reproduce it, so it would be very helpful to get information from customers experiencing these issues. I have some files that can be used to gather more extensive logs about this, but they are not public. If you would be willing to help and get some logs, please let me know and I can make this ticket private to share the files with you. It would be greatly appreciated!

    Best regards,

    Marte

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