nRF51 Dongle not does not find devices anymore after firmware update in third party app.

[fungiking]

Hello everybody

I am using the nRF51 Dongle to connect via a third party app to a measuring device. This always worked very well on my first computer, the app could detect the dongle, scan for bluetooth devices and then connect to the measuring device. However, while setting up the third party app on a different computer, I accidentally updated the firmware of the device to version "2022 Jan 20 16:43" as seen in the picture below in the J-Link Configuration (unfortunately I do not know the old version). All the threads which have a similar problem, are solved with dead links to older firmware. Is there a possibility to roll back to some later version of the firmware? If yes, how can I do so?

Many thanks for your help and support.

Sincerely,
Chris

[Edvin]

Hello,

I am not necessarily convinced that it is the Segger JLink FW that causes the issue. Is the FW on the nRF the same as it was when it was working, or have you erased it?

What does your nRF51 dongle look like? Does it have a PCA number (on a sticker somewhere on the dongle)?

BR,
Edvin

[fungiking]

Hi, thanks for your fast response. It is not the same FW anymore and as it is the only thing I change between when it was working and when it stopped working I assumed that must be the problem. The PCA is 10031 and that's how it looks like:

[fungiking]

I updated the firmware using the app J-Link Configurator V7.62a. I am really sorry when I cannot answer all your questions. Where can I see which hardware is installed on which chip (I unfortunately never flashed something on the chip by myself and my knowledge of the architecture of the dongle is also very minimal). 

[Edvin]

fungiking said:

I could click on "Scan" and then after a few seconds in the upper left white rectangle a lot of devices could be seen,

I see, but that means that the nRF chip on the dongle was programmed with something. If it doesn't have an application, then the radio will not turn on at all, and then you will not be able to use it to detect bluetooth devices.

Whether your application (from your screenshot) searches for nRF dongles and automatically program them, I don't know.

Do you have another dongle that is working? If so, can you please try the following:

Download nRF Command Line Tools, and install it. Then open a command window in any location that you can store a file (open file explorer, assuming you are using Windows, press "Alt" and "D", type cmd and hit Enter.

Then type this command while the working dongle is inserted in your computer:

nrfjprog --readcode working_fw.hex

Whether or not you have a working dongle, please try to insert the dongle that is not working, and type:

nrfjprog --readcode not_working_fw.hex

This should give you some .hex files. Can you please upload the two hex files here? What I want to check is whether or not there is any fw at all on the nRF Chip on the dongle that is not working. 

If you have a dongle that is working, then you can try to program the non-working dongle with the FW from the working dongle:

nrfjprog --program working_fw.hex --verify --sectorerase --reset

And see if it starts working then.

If not, can you please try to find out whether the pc application that you are using (screenshot) is programming the nRF, or if it expects the nRF to already be programmed with a certain firmware?

BR,

Edvin

[fungiking]

Hi Edvin

Thank you very much! I just now got a brand new dongle (of the shelf) and this one works. The program should not program the dongle as far as I know.  I figure however that there are two different applications installed on the dongle because on the brand new dongle there are two LEDs which are lighting up, but on the old one which is NOT working, there is only one green LED that is lighting up (see pictures attached). I have also attached the working and non working FW as you wished and I also tried to flash the old one with the working firmware, however it still doesn't work (sorry that I assumed that it was the firmware before).

When I connected the new dongle to the computer, I saw two pop-up windows: one about a new firmware update and the second one about that the dongle is in secure mode and that the memory has to be "unlocked", but if you do so something gets erased (sorry I cannot remember the original message). For the brand new dongle I clicked NO for both pop ups, but I think for the one that is not working anymore, I clicked Yes for "unlocking" the memory. Maybe that erased the factory application? Is there a way to set back the dongle to factory settings?

working_fw.hex

not_working_fw.hex

Thanks for your help!

BR,
Chris 

[Edvin]

Hello,

Without knowing the exact text from the popups, I can't say for sure, but that doesn't immediately sound like something we have written. However, the consepts is familiar. If the dongle (off the shelf) is in fact readback protected, then in order to turn off the readback protection, you would need to erase the flash. This is, as you may understand, used by the manufacturer of the dongle (not us, but the ones who bought them from us) to prevent others from copying their firmware over to new dongles. So if you clicked something like "unlock", then it is probably erased. 

(FYI: The green LED is probably for the debug chip, and the blue/purple LED is controlled by the applciation on the nRF chip.)

You will have to contact whomever you bought these dongles from to see if you can have the FW to reprogram it, but they may have their reasons not to share it. The firmware is at least not from us, since we don't have anything on moment/power/work (from your previous screenshot). 

However, you still have an nRF51 dongle that you can use for something else. I don't know if it is useful, but you can test the app nRF Connect for Desktop-> Bluetooth Low Energy. It will program the dongle with some other FW, and then you can see nearby bluetooth devices, connect to them and see the raw data being transmitted, but not in the format from your screenshot in the previous reply.

Best regards,

Edvin

[fungiking]

Hi Edvin

Ah yes, I think this is exactly what happened. I guess I unlocked it because I thought that's what is needed because I did not read the whole text for the first dongle. But perfect, then I will contact the manufacturer and you can close the ticket.

Many thanks,

Christoph