Read nRF5340 Network Core "FW_INFO" from the App Core

RE: Read nRF5340 Network Core "FW_INFO" from the App Core

dejans — Mon, 08 Sep 2025 09:01:27 GMT

Hi Przemek Ostrowski

Can you provide more information about your application?
Can you provide some details on what you try to achieve?

Best regards,
Dejan

RE: Read nRF5340 Network Core "FW_INFO" from the App Core

Przemek Ostrowski — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 16:20:06 GMT

That is a must have feature. How can you test the net core updates otherwise?

RE: Read nRF5340 Network Core "FW_INFO" from the App Core

dejans — Wed, 06 Jul 2022 15:06:58 GMT

Hi Blake,

It is good to know that you found a way forward.

Best regards,
Dejan

RE: Read nRF5340 Network Core "FW_INFO" from the App Core

blake-bit — Wed, 06 Jul 2022 00:05:53 GMT

I've worked out my own solution to have the NetCore App write its FW_INFO version number to a shared memory location at boot.

So that will suffice; though I'm disappointed there isn't an out of the box solution via simple kconfigs and existing HCI commands.

-Blake

RE: Read nRF5340 Network Core "FW_INFO" from the App Core

blake-bit — Tue, 05 Jul 2022 18:57:13 GMT

Hi Dejan,

Simply put, is there any way I can set a 16-bit value anywhere in the Network Core App image at build time that can be read back by the Application Core App image at runtime?

This is desired to be to differentiate between two App Core App images that have been built with different kconfigs set in our child_image/hci_rpmsg.conf file.

Thanks,
Blake

RE: Read nRF5340 Network Core "FW_INFO" from the App Core

dejans — Tue, 05 Jul 2022 16:32:02 GMT

Hi Blake,

What you asked is currently not supported in SoftDevice Controller. List of supported HCI VS commands can be found here.
BT_VS_CMD_BIT_READ_BUILD_INFO is supported in Zephyr and can be selected by enabling CONFIG_BT_LL_SW_SPLIT=y. Apart from this, we recommend the use of SoftDevice Controller.

Best regards,
Dejan

RE: Read nRF5340 Network Core "FW_INFO" from the App Core

dejans — Mon, 04 Jul 2022 15:43:38 GMT

Hi Blake,

I have requested more information internally. I'll get back to you when I get some additional information, hopefully tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.

Best regards,
Dejan

RE: Read nRF5340 Network Core "FW_INFO" from the App Core

blake-bit — Fri, 01 Jul 2022 22:21:26 GMT

Hi Dejan,

I had already tried what you suggested. I added

CONFIG_BT_HCI_VS_EXT=y
CONFIG_BT_CTLR_HCI_VS_BUILD_INFO="TESTFOO"

to our child_image/hci_rpmsg.conf, and nothing improved.

Maybe I'm invoking the command incorrectly, can you provide some example code that invokes the BT_HCI_OP_VS_READ_VERSION_INFO command on the host and prints out its contents?

Alternatively, I'm not certain the function to populate that data would get compiled into our BLE controller on our build. We are using the "softcore" in NCS 1.9.1. I do see where the data is populated in the hci.c file, but I can completely DELETE the file and rebuild the project from scratch and things still build successfully - so I don't think the project is using the hci.c file at all - therefore the kconfig would have no effect.

Is there some kconfig or setting that will cause the Network Core Application to use some nrfx pre-compiled library that I can't change?

Should I expect to find the functions that populate this data in the .map file of the build output for the network core?
For example, I would expect to find vs_read_version_info as you mentioned above, but I don't see it in the map file; it might be obscured behind a randomly generated name. However I did find sdc_hci_cmd_vs_zephyr_read_version_info which is part of the nrfx pre-compiled library that I don't think I change either with code or kconfigs, see below.

build/hci_rpmsg/zephyr/zephyr_pre1.map:

 .text          0x0000000001025d72       0x34 ~/co/firmware-nrf-zephyr/workspace/nrfxlib/softdevice_controller/lib/cortex-m33+nodsp/soft-float/libsoftdevice_controller_multirole.a(libsoftdevice_controller_s140_debug_soft__obfuscated.elf)
                0x0000000001025d72                sdc_hci_cmd_vs_zephyr_read_version_info

Is there a sample project that I can reference (possibly for the 5340dk board) that has this command enabled and working?

Thanks,
Blake

RE: Read nRF5340 Network Core "FW_INFO" from the App Core

dejans — Fri, 01 Jul 2022 13:35:30 GMT

Hi,

You should include CONFIG_BT_HCI_VS_EXT=y configuration option.

The code for populating the data is located in hci.c file.

Best regards,
Dejan

RE: Read nRF5340 Network Core "FW_INFO" from the App Core

blake-bit — Fri, 01 Jul 2022 00:11:57 GMT

Hello,

Correct, I am aware the two Cores cannot read each other's flash data, thus a HCI command will have to be used.

Ok, the BT_HCI_OP_VS_READ_VERSION_INFO command seems to be fixed from the nrfx pre-compiled library and cannot be changed.

I did try the command you suggested as I noted in my original question, but re-trying today I still get a failed response as I saw before:

[quote userid="106448" url="~/f/nordic-q-a/89210/read-nrf5340-network-core-fw_info-from-the-app-core"]I also saw this defined BT_VS_CMD_BIT_READ_BUILD_INFO, but didn't see anywhere that this command type/enum is handled. I attempted to make the HCI call with this command but it failed with:
[00:00:00.665,740] <wrn> bt_hci_core : opcode 0xfc08 status 0x01
Is this command implemented?[/quote]

Can you tell me how to configure the BLE controller to be able to respond to this command? Or where the code in the controller is that populates the data to respond to this command - I could not find it?

Thanks.

RE: Read nRF5340 Network Core "FW_INFO" from the App Core

dejans — Fri, 24 Jun 2022 14:43:59 GMT

Hi,

It should not be possible to read information written in the network core from the application core at runtime.

For the second question, it is not expected for values that you mentioned to change. BT_HCI_OP_VS_READ_VERSION_INFO calls vs_read_version_info here. BT_HCI_VS_HW_PLAT and BT_HCI_HW_VAR relate to the board. Kernel variables are defined here.

You could try command BT_HCI_OP_VS_READ_BUILD_INFO? This should return "Zephyr OS v" \ KERNEL_VERSION_STRING CONFIG_BT_CTLR_HCI_VS_BUILD_INFO if CONFIG_BT_CTLR_HCI_VS_BUILD_INFO has been set in your configuration file.

Best regards,
Dejan

RE: Read nRF5340 Network Core "FW_INFO" from the App Core

dejans — Thu, 23 Jun 2022 07:41:01 GMT

Hi,

I have asked internally. I'll get back to you when I get new information.

Best regards,
Dejan

RE: Read nRF5340 Network Core "FW_INFO" from the App Core

dejans — Wed, 22 Jun 2022 16:05:16 GMT

Hi,

I'll look into it. I'll get back to you tomorrow.

Best regards,
Dejan