nRF Connect Programmer v2.3.3 fails to detect nRF5340dk board

[Claudius]

Hi to All Colleagues:

New to Nordic and its development platform. Finished installing required tools using nRF Connect for Desktop v3.10.0. Attempting to use nRF Connect Programmer v2.3.3 to download the Heart Rate Monitor (HRM) demo application as recommended on  "Running a first test", but the Programmer tool fails to detect the connected nRF5340dk board. No device is shown under "Select Device". Below some additional information:

nrfjprog -v
nrfjprog version: 10.15.4 external
JLinkARM.dll version: 7.62a

Attempted erasing the device after reading some recommendations on the forum by issuing a "nrfjprog --recover". It didn't correct the situation, only erased the demo application that came preloaded with the DK. We can connect to the J-Link onboard debugger using Segger Embedded Studio.

We have two DKs, both experience the same problem. Second one is set aside w/o modifications for reference.

Any advice you can give us to continue our development journey will be greatly appreciated. Please let us know if more information is required from us to determine the cause of the problem.

Thanks in advance, best regards

[dejans]

Hi Claudio,

Do you have a spare board of the same type to check if the results that you are getting are the same for both boards?
Can you connect to the device from VS Code? Can device be found in the list of connected devices in VS Code?

issuing a "nrfjprog --recover"

Based on nrfjprog documentation, the correct way to recover would be to first recover the network core and then the application core:
nrfjprog --recover --coprocessor CP_NETWORK     
nrfjprog --recover

Best regards,
Dejan

[Claudius]

Hi Dejan,

Here are our answers:

1. Yes, we have a second dk board, and when exercised we get the same results.

2. We have VS Code installed, but not familiar with it. We can connect to the device using Segger Embedded Studio.

3. We followed the recommended sequence of commands, didn't correct the situation.

C:\Users\***>nrfjprog --recover --coprocessor CP_NETWORK
Recovering device. This operation might take 30s.
Writing image to disable ap protect.
Erasing user code and UICR flash areas.

C:\Users\***>nrfjprog --recover
Recovering device. This operation might take 30s.
Writing image to disable ap protect.
Erasing user code and UICR flash areas.

Best regards,

Claudio

[dejans]

Hi Claudio,

Looking at your original post

Attempting to use nRF Connect Programmer v2.3.3 to download the Heart Rate Monitor (HRM) demo application as recommended on  "Running a first test"

What is "Running a first test"? Can you provide a link?

Claudius said:

We have VS Code installed, but not familiar with it.

We have video tutorials that can help you familiarize with nRF extension for VS Code.  Since you have VS code already installed, you can follow the video tutorial nRF Connect for VS Code installation to install nRF Connect extension for VS Code. You can find more video tutorials here.

Claudius said:

We followed the recommended sequence of commands, didn't correct the situation.

These are proper commands, so this might not be an issue. You could however, try to restart the device to see if it helps.

Best regards,
Dejan

[Claudius]

Hi Dejan,

1. Here is the link:

https://infocenter.nordicsemi.com/index.jsp?topic=%2Fug_gsg_ncs%2FUG%2Fgsg%2Ffirst_test.html

2. We are aware of the video support, but will rather not get into the effort of learning a new tool until we can at least verify we can load pre-compiled code into our Dev Kits. The fact that the SEGGER ES tool detects the target indicates to us that there is something going on with the nRF Connect Programmer installation. We have re-installed it with same results.

3. We executed the proposed commands and they did have an effect. Once executed, we got access to the CPU registers, see below:

C:\Users\XXX>nrfjprog --readregs
R0: 0x00000000
R1: 0x00000000
R2: 0x00000000
R3: 0x00000000
R4: 0x00000000
R5: 0x00000000
R6: 0x00000000
R7: 0x00000000
R8: 0xFFFFFFFF
R9: 0xFFFFFFFF
R10: 0xFFFFFFFF
R11: 0xFFFFFFFF
R12: 0xFFFFFFFF
SP: 0xFFFFFFFC
LR: 0xFFFFFFFF
PC: 0xFFFFFFFE
xPSR: 0xF9000000
MSP: 0xFFFFFFFC
PSP: 0x00000000

But even after this, the nRF Connect Programmer application fails to detect the board. Are there any configuration settings for this tool that we might have missed?

4. This is the shortcut installed on our system to invoke the programmer:

"C:\Users\XXX\AppData\Local\Programs\nrfconnect\nRF Connect for Desktop.exe" --args --open-official-app pc-nrfconnect-programmer --source "official"

Is this the correct shortcut/parameters?

5. Every time the Dev Kit is connected to the computer, the computer detects the device as an external drive as shown below:

Thanks for your help, best regards

Claudio

[dejans]

Hi Claudio,

Which Windows version are you using?

Claudius said:

"C:\Users\XXX\AppData\Local\Programs\nrfconnect\nRF Connect for Desktop.exe" --args --open-official-app pc-nrfconnect-programmer --source "official"

Is there any special reason why you would need to open Programmer in one command? You should open the nRF Connect Programmer application from nRF Connect for Desktop. 

Best regards,
Dejan