when selecting the xiao_ble board as the target for the blinky application, application doesn't work and starts at wrong flash address

[kobyfr]

Older SDK 1.7 - blinky works on xiao and DK

I have a xiao_ble_sense board, which I can easily program using the Segger + Nordic older SDK 1.7.1.

I have tested and ran the "blinky" application it contains, after I changed the LED pin numbers to match the ones of the xiao_ble_sense board.

It works fine

New Zephir SDK 2.3 - blinky works on DK, but not on xiao

When I switched to the new Zephyr-based SDK and west + vs CODE tool-chain, I can run the new blinky example of that SDK, on my nrf52840-DK board, but cannot run it on my xiao-ble-sense board.

the image seems to be flashed OK to the xiao, but the on board LED does not blink.

When comparing the images built for the DK board and for the xiao board, they are very different. The starting address for the DK is 0x0000, while it is 0x27000 for the xiao.

what is wrong here?

Here is the setup for the xiao build

Here is the setup for the DK build

can it be that the xiao board setup expects the Arduino bootloader to reside from 0x0000 till 0x27000? and will the arduino bootloader run images which start from address 0x27000 ?

------------------ UPDATE

I've reflashed the SEEED Xiao bootloader, and there is some matching between the bootloader address and the blinky HEX address

but still, no blinks.

[kobyfr]

solved it, by creating a copy of the xiao_ble board definitions, and overwriting the flash definition parts.

Indeed the flash division seems to match the Arduino bootloader  requirements.

I've set the application to start at address 0, instead of the 0x27000 address.
Attaching the board definition files I've copied and modified:

,xiao_ble_sense.zip

[ufocia]

Glad you solved it. Just FYI, the XIAO bootloader "expects" an nRF5 softdevice between 0x0 and 0x27000 as shown in your screenshot.

[ZacMid007]

Had the same problem here, it can also be fixed by commenting out a couple of lines