Build and Run with SEGGER Embedded Studio (SES) v6.20a on nRF5 SDK 17.1.0 and S140 7.2.0 on nRF52840

[Casper Kronborg Pedersen]

Hi DevZone,

I have recently updated:

• nRF5 SDK to 17.1.0 from 15.3.0
• S140 to 7.2.0 from 6.1.1
• SES to v6.20a from 4.16

The SoftDevice now fails to initialize when using the "Build and Run" option with SES.

The code initializes without issue if I:

• Use Programmer v2.3.3 from nRF Connect for Desktop v3.10.0
• If I Power Cycle the hardware after each flash of the .hex files
• If I "Build and Debug" with SES

Is this a known issue, and could it potentially be a timing issue?

Code that fails:

void ble_stack_init(void)
{
    ret_code_t err_code;

    err_code = nrf_sdh_enable_request();
    APP_ERROR_CHECK(err_code);

    // Configure the BLE stack using the default settings.
    // Fetch the start address of the application RAM.
    uint32_t ram_start = 0;
    err_code = nrf_sdh_ble_default_cfg_set(BLE_CONN_CFG_TAG, &ram_start);
    APP_ERROR_CHECK(err_code);

    // Enable BLE stack.
    err_code = nrf_sdh_ble_enable(&ram_start);
    APP_ERROR_CHECK(err_code);

//    // NO OBSERVERS AT THIS POINT 
//    // Register a handler for BLE events.
//    NRF_SDH_BLE_OBSERVER(m_ble_observer, APP_BLE_OBSERVER_PRIO, ble_evt_handler, NULL);
}

Specifically the call to nrf_sdh_enable_request() returns with error code NRF_ERROR_INVALID_STATE (0x00000008).

This should mean that the SoftDevice is already initialized when reading the documentation. However, preceding the nrf_sdh_enable_request() call with a nrf_sdh_is_enabled()

tells me that it is not.

Comparing with example projects:

I have compared to the example projects given in SDK 17.1.0, and the initialization code for the BLE stack seems unchanged between versions 17.1.0 and 15.3.0. 

Also, I have tried building and running the peripheral example from SDK 17.1.0 "usbd_ble_uart_freertos" both on our hardware and an nRF52840-DK, which fails with the same error code.

So, even with code directly from the SDK and on multiple hardware the issue is the same.

Thanks in advance.

Br. Casper

[Edvin]

Casper Kronborg Pedersen said:

Could this mean that the difference might lie in defines in the sdk_config.h header file?

It could be, but my main suspicion, and why I asked about the NRF_LOG_WARNING lines is that when you change the softdevice, it will typically require some other memory settings than what it did in the old SDK. I will change this ticket to private now.

Casper Kronborg Pedersen said:

Are any changes needed to that file to make things work as intended when updating the SDK version?

You should see the migration guide for the SDK versions between 15.3.0 and 17.1.0.

If you took the project file from the old SDK, then you need to make sure that you upload the new SoftDevice from the new SDK, and you probably need to change flash start address, flash size, ram start address and ram size to match your new SoftDevice.

For Flash, just see what flash start address and size the other examples in the SDK that uses the same softdevice uses, while for RAM, you need to monitor the log, or debug and set breakpoints at those points to see if it wants you to change the RAM settings. The reason I can't just tell you what to set is that it depends on the application you are running, the number of services and characteristics, the connection parameters that you intend to use, the MTU size, the number of supported simultaneous connections and so on.

Best regards,

Edvin