Samsung Galaxy Tab A8 does not work with nRF Mesh Android App

[Alex Ross]

Hello,

Not sure where to direct this (we can open a GitHub issue but wanted to clear it here first), basically everything works great on our Galaxy Tab S6 Lite (SM-P610), can provision, everything. Same for the iOS version. However on the Samsung Galaxy Tab A8 (SM-X200) can see the device to be provisioned, but fails to provision it after the first steps.

We're using the 833 dev kit with soft device 140.  

Thanks,

Alex

[Alex Ross]

None yet, for now we're switching back to the S6. I sort of get the impression that this is a Samsung issue that they need to solve.

[JonasJ]

I'm experiencing the same issue with Samsung Galaxy Tab A8. I'm using version 3.2.4 of nRF Mesh and tested this against the dimming server example in nRF5 SDK For Mesh v5.0.

I've attached a log from nRF Mesh app, a pcap file showing the broken PB-GATT session, screenshot with info about the phone and a screenshot from Wireshark showing the numerous retries done by the tablet where Wireshark indicate CRC error. Finally the connection timeout.

I've tested the ST Mesh app on the same device and that works fine. I've also tested the nRF Mesh app with an example from NCS which also works.

So it seem to be the combination of Samsung Galaxy Tab A8, nRF Mesh app and NRF5 SDK For Mesh that doesn't work.

nrf_mesh-2022-09-16T14.12.38+02.00.log

nrf_mesh_provision_dimming_server_crc_error.pcapng

[JonasJ]

Noticed that 104 bits in the middle of Public Key Y changes for every retransmission but the CRC value remain the same.

Also, the nRF Mesh App log contain a couple of tries to provision various nodes, check the times in pcap to sync with the entries in the log.

[Simonr]

Hi

We found an issue in the Samsung Galaxy A8 Bluetooth capabilities this summer, where it seems to send packets with a longer payload than what has been negotiated, which caused these issues with our devices, as they will terminate the connection if this happens. Our conclusion was that there wasn't anything to be done on the nRF side of the application to remedy this.

Best regards,

Simon

[JonasJ]

Thanks for letting us know about that issue. I'm not sure that is the same issue here as it works when using ST BLE Mesh app on the same Tablet and Mesh device. So it appears to be something that the nRF Mesh App does differently.

Also, the packets are re-transmitted multiple times with the data corrupted at the same position in the packet. All with correct length.

Another point is that it works just fine if the Mesh device is running NCS 2.1.0 examples instead of nRF5 SDK For Mesh v5.0.0 examples.

Have Nordic contacted Samsung about this issue to get it fixed?