nRF Progammer v2.3.3

[Learner]

Hello,

While programming my board with a merged.hex I sometimes see some differences at the end of the Programmer log.

Sometimes the log ends like this,

2022-03-25T14:05:24.026Z DEBUG Usage data has been sent
2022-03-25T14:05:24.026Z INFO Loading readback protection status for Application core
2022-03-25T14:05:24.662Z INFO Readback protection status: NRFDL_PROTECTION_STATUS_ALL
2022-03-25T14:05:24.671Z INFO Parse memory regions for Application core
2022-03-25T14:05:24.675Z INFO Device is loaded and ready for further operation

and other times it ends like this,

2022-03-25T13:49:15.964Z DEBUG Usage data has been sent
2022-03-25T13:49:15.964Z INFO Loading readback protection status for Application core
2022-03-25T13:49:16.725Z INFO Readback protection status: NRFDL_PROTECTION_STATUS_NONE

The programming of the target board looks as if it succeeded but I am concerned something else went wrong e.g. the SoC protection is not enabled.

Which of the two programming sessions have completed successfully?

Does it mean I need to reprogram the boards when I get NRFDL_PROTECTION_STATUS_NONE?

Can someone please explain what is going on here? 

Thank you.

Kind regards

Mohamed

[Simonr]

Hi

Sorry about the late reply, the Easter vacation period has left us with quite the backlog that we're now going through. 

Have you perhaps disabled readback protection with the APPROTECT register in your application?

Best regards,

Simon

[Learner]

Hi Simon,

I only disable the readback protection when I am developing and building a debug version of the code. However, as far as I can remember, the merged.hex file I was using was from a release build as shown in the Programmer log below.

2022-04-12T15:32:01.735Z INFO Parsing HEX file: C:\Sandbox\HomeBeacon_dev_v131+location\build_nrf52833dk_nrf52833_release\zephyr\merged.hex

It could be that I had a debug version running on my board and I was updating it to a release version. If this was the case, would it explain the behaviour I have reported?

Thank you.

Kind regards

Mohamed