nRF Connect / VS Code broken for M1 Mac users

RE: nRF Connect / VS Code broken for M1 Mac users

Sigurd Hellesvik — Fri, 25 Nov 2022 13:36:42 GMT

Hi Rick.

Our tools now support Mac M1.

If this is not the case, please open a new ticket and we will help you figure it out.

Regards,
Sigurd Hellesvik

RE: nRF Connect / VS Code broken for M1 Mac users

JetForMe — Thu, 24 Nov 2022 01:49:17 GMT

Any update on this?

RE: nRF Connect / VS Code broken for M1 Mac users

Sigurd Hellesvik — Mon, 20 Jun 2022 08:48:29 GMT

Hi again

Our official releases are unfortunately still not updated for complete M1 support.

However, I think you should be able to install an universal version of JLink to make VS Code and nrfjprog work.
See the discussion in Case 288737 for instructions on how to do this.

Regards,
Sigurd Hellesvik

RE: nRF Connect / VS Code broken for M1 Mac users

Shahar — Thu, 16 Jun 2022 21:06:14 GMT

I somewhat disagree with the assesment that macOS is not gaining a massive market share.

I see more and more of the "new blood" of embedded developers (embedded is a much broaded term this days than it used to be) actually prefering the Apple Silicon computers.

It gives them mobility, at least 8 hours of work without the need to hookup a PS and super fast build times.
And there's no real reason not to go this route this days when many of the big players gives fully workinng Apple Silicton or macOS solution which works like STM32, Segger, platformIO (early adopter!), MicroChip, NXP, etc. (Silicon Labs was also late to the party on this btw)

just got to compare Zephyr on Windows x64 to Zephyr on macOS Apple Silicon (as Zephyr does supports the M1 stuff, its mostly the Nordic issue) - it's massive. Even Intel based macs are faster, the whole "tons of small files with lots of directories" has always been the achiles heel of NTFS. Look at git and how much work is done on microsoft end to improve the git for windows (like caching and stuff).

So I do believe Apple Siicon and ARM based Windows is going to become a bigger and bigger market. ARM based Windows PC will break so much stuff ... which going to hurt 🙂

RE: nRF Connect / VS Code broken for M1 Mac users

Sigurd Hellesvik — Thu, 16 Jun 2022 12:53:38 GMT

Hi Scott and Sahar

I have queried our developer who will be able to give an good answer on our M1 Mac support status.

However, he is out of office today. I will let you know what our status on the issue is as soon as I hear from him. Hopefully tomorrow or Monday.

Regards,
Sigurd Hellesvik

RE: nRF Connect / VS Code broken for M1 Mac users

Scott — Tue, 14 Jun 2022 14:49:42 GMT

Apple Silicon is great but unfortunately I can't imagine that Apple will magically get massive market share especially among engineers who have weird longstanding biases against Macs and macOS - especially given that there is a bit of a bootstrap problem. Even Apple doesn't use Macs to design their hardware because all of the best CAD tools are PC / workstation based, and they have their own chips and internal tools and toolchains for software development so we're stuck with hoping that companies like Nordic will put in the effort to take care of niche customers and although you and I think we're using the best hardware, I get why they'd make a business decision to neglect us and leave us floundering

RE: nRF Connect / VS Code broken for M1 Mac users

Shahar — Tue, 14 Jun 2022 06:39:33 GMT

We rant and rant ... but I don't think Nordic really cares about us ...

90% of their end users are windows based.

But Apple Silicon Macs are taking over, at some point I hope there will be a tipping point.

RE: nRF Connect / VS Code broken for M1 Mac users

Scott — Tue, 14 Jun 2022 02:08:33 GMT

I do get that software is hard and that it's much more fun to work on new stuff than to maintain or ruggedise/polish the old stuff, but that's so essential especially when people are relying on it for their products

RE: nRF Connect / VS Code broken for M1 Mac users

Shahar — Tue, 14 Jun 2022 00:28:50 GMT

Add to the list:

- Bugs in nRF5 SDK which been in existence for ages and you simply patch it yourself based on posts in the dev zone (Bootloader for nRF52832AB, softblink for P1 GPIOs, FreeRTOS nRF52832 FPU bugs, FreeRTOS out of date, just to name a few…)

- nRF5 SDK in complete neglect. Samples still uses nrf_drv. Still no proper examples for SAADC v2. Latest SES compatibility broken. Just to name a few.

- nrfutil unusable on M1 unless you build pc-BLE-driver v5 bindings manually

- pc-BLE-driver v6 node.js/python non-existent.

RE: nRF Connect / VS Code broken for M1 Mac users

Scott — Mon, 13 Jun 2022 23:43:33 GMT

This is even worse than you think because Apple released an M1 Developers Transition Kit in late June 2020 so closer to two years ago.

I get that it's annoying to deal with the differences in hardware but this is just neglect

RE: nRF Connect / VS Code broken for M1 Mac users

Shahar — Mon, 13 Jun 2022 22:36:06 GMT

A month later and this is still an issue.

This is starting to become ridiculus.

M1 macs been out since November 10, 2020. We're mid 2022 now (almost 18 months).

RE: nRF Connect / VS Code broken for M1 Mac users

Scott — Wed, 11 May 2022 14:13:37 GMT

Good to hear that.

It's fine because we've given up on this and have already invested a great deal of time doing development using the antiquated nRF5 SDK instead and we won't have time to spend porting to the nRF Connect SDK anytime soon

RE: nRF Connect / VS Code broken for M1 Mac users

Sigurd Hellesvik — Wed, 11 May 2022 14:05:40 GMT

Our developers are working on M1 support for our tools.

Unfortunately, we are not yet able to give a time estimate on when it will be finished.

Regards,
Sigurd Hellesvik

RE: nRF Connect / VS Code broken for M1 Mac users

Scott — Sat, 07 May 2022 15:25:48 GMT

It's so frustrating.

I like and have a longstanding relationship with Nordic. I generally like and want to use their products. Unfortunately things like this make it almost impossible.

We finally gave up on using the nRF Connect SDK because of this and reverted to the deprecated nRF5 SDK which means we are stuck on the 52832/52840 and can't move to some of their newer and more exciting chips without a significant rewrite

Sigurd Hellesvik the issue isn't obscure and there is no need for additional tickets.

M1 Mac support is spotty and incomplete which makes your nRF Connect SDK and MS Code integration useless for many of us. Fix that and you'd be helping many of your users immensely. Don't and we'll be reluctantly forced to migrate away from your silicon

RE: nRF Connect / VS Code broken for M1 Mac users

Sigurd Hellesvik — Fri, 06 May 2022 12:59:47 GMT

Hi Manav

If you are experiencing your own version of this issue and the information in this case is no enough for you, please open a new ticket, and we will help you.

Regards,
Sigurd Hellesvik

RE: nRF Connect / VS Code broken for M1 Mac users

manav — Fri, 06 May 2022 10:06:29 GMT

Have been facing the same issue. This is certainly not encouraging to use these boards. No support at all, i have checked all the other threads related to this issue.

RE: nRF Connect / VS Code broken for M1 Mac users

Sigurd Hellesvik — Wed, 20 Apr 2022 10:05:20 GMT

Hi Scott

If you have questions about out roadmap, please contact your regional sales manager.

Regards,
Sigurd Hellesvik

RE: nRF Connect / VS Code broken for M1 Mac users

Scott — Tue, 19 Apr 2022 15:39:14 GMT

Hi Sigurd

I got it working (kind of) as you described but it still doesn't flash properly as described here https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/f/nordic-q-a/87063/m1-mac-support and the answer to that is not « We don't support M1 based Macs »

I know you don't yet.

I'm asking you to please do so. These have been out for well over a year now and you're making almost half a billion dollars a year so I kind think you might have the resources to address this problem

RE: nRF Connect / VS Code broken for M1 Mac users

Sigurd Hellesvik — Tue, 19 Apr 2022 11:53:32 GMT

Hi Scott

[quote user=""]First not supporting the native VS Code app is annoying and forces us to use a much slower non-native Intel based build[/quote]

Thank you for your feedback. See case 87024 for more information on improvements of VS Code.

[quote user=""]Second - even after installing that, I'm stuck forever in nRF Connect for Desktop on « Checking if VS Code and dependencies are installed »[/quote]

Instead of using our Toolchain Manager to download the packs, you could try to install them using VS Code Marketplace first, from the nRF Connect Extension Pack. This might make the process faster next time you install our extension.

[quote user=""]

Third after going around that and installing directly in VS Code [ which incidentally seems to kind of work in the M1 based VS Code ] I get a lot of «

[west]: warning: templates not found in /usr/local/Cellar/git/2.32.0_1/share/git-core/ » warnings

Fourth - just with the basic hello_world sample app, compilation fails because zephyr.h and sys/printk.h are not found

[/quote]

This could be to missing configuration of the toolchain or SDK. Go to our extension->Open welcome page->Quick Setiup to set the nRF. Set the toolchain in an image looking like this(the example is fro Ubuntu, so it might differ some):

[quote user=""]Fifth - spaces and other perfectly valid characters in filenames/directory names are not allowed [/quote]

Which characters are you referring to?

[quote user="smenor"]still can't even get an LED to blink much less migrate our existing firmware into this new platform[/quote]

If you are experiencing issue, please create a new ticket and explain your issue, and we will help you with your issue.

Regards,
Sigurd Hellesvik

RE: nRF Connect / VS Code broken for M1 Mac users

Scott — Sun, 17 Apr 2022 22:10:17 GMT

I've managed to get it partially / sort-of working by installing in VS Code and monkeying around with a lot of stuff but I still can't even get an LED to blink much less migrate our existing firmware into this new platform

RE: nRF Connect / VS Code broken for M1 Mac users

JetForMe — Sun, 17 Apr 2022 22:05:16 GMT

I just tried installing this today, and it took me a while to figure out Apple Silicon incompatibility was the reason it couldn't find VS Code. Sigh.