RE: DFU secure bootloader fails on nRF52832-QFAB

aamacaya — Tue, 15 Feb 2022 14:25:05 GMT

Hung,

I changed the Section Placement Macros in the _debug project version as you suggested. I still can't build the project, but the errors were reduced to:

Linking secure_bootloader_ble_s132_pca10040_debug.elf
    .bss is too large to fit in RAM1 memory segment
    section .heap overlaps absolute placed section .stack
    .mbr_params_page is too large to fit in FLASH1 memory segment
    .bootloader_settings_page is too large to fit in FLASH1 memory segment
    section .stack VMA [0000000020007800,0000000020007fff] overlaps section .bss VMA [00000000200059d0,000000002000a1d7]
Build failed

This suggests that there is still a FLASH shortage problem and a RAM Shortage Problem.

For the non-debug project (and my original Section Placement MAcros suggestion) the build errors are:

  Linking secure_bootloader_ble_s132_pca10040.elf
    section .heap overlaps absolute placed section .stack
    .mbr_params_page is too large to fit in FLASH1 memory segment
    .bootloader_settings_page is too large to fit in FLASH1 memory segment
    section .stack VMA [0000000020007800,0000000020007fff] overlaps section .bss VMA [00000000200059b4,0000000020007f63]
Build failed

In this case there is only a FLASH shortage.

I have NRF_BL_DFU_ENTER_METHOD_BUTTON defined as "0" so there is no pin activating the DFU mode on the custom board. Also, as a redundancy, I have defined NRF_BL_DFU_ENTER_METHOD_BUTTON_PIN as "4" since P0.4 is a button on my custom board that I can easily control.

I have adjusted FLASH size and RAM size accordingly on the ble_app_blinky project. The project builds without any errors and I can run it without problems on my custom board by uploading it using SES (I can not use DFU since the bootloader does not build).

Finally, here I attach the ble_app_blinky project, the pca10040_s132_ble project, and the pca10040_s132_ble_debug project that I am using.

devzone.nordicsemi.com/.../0131.files.zip

RE: DFU secure bootloader fails on nRF52832-QFAB

Hung Bui — Tue, 15 Feb 2022 11:19:58 GMT

Hi Agustin,

Could you send us the project you created, both the bootloader and the ble_app_blinky ?
What you did in 4.3 seems to be correct. However at 4.1 I think the correct address should be :

FLASH_PH_START=0x0
FLASH_PH_SIZE=0x40000
RAM_PH_START=0x20000000
RAM_PH_SIZE=0x8000
FLASH_START=0x31000
FLASH_SIZE=0xd000
RAM_START=0x20005968
RAM_SIZE=0x2698

The reason for that is that you were building the secure_bootloader\pca10040_s132_ble_debug variant. If you build the secure_bootloader\pca10040_s132_ble you can use what you used. This explain why you get the "too large to fit in flash" error.

In the ble_app_blinky , you should also change the FLASH SIZE and RAM SIZE accordingly.

I would suggest to stick to the bootloader _debug variant so that you can debug it. You can add a breakpoint inside dfu_enter_check() and check why it doesn't enter the app.

There could be a chance that NRF_BL_DFU_ENTER_METHOD_BUTTON was enabled and the NRF_BL_DFU_ENTER_METHOD_BUTTON_PIN (by default P0.16) was in active level causing the bootloader to stay in DFU mode.