SEGGER Embedded Studio Part 2 - Monitor Mode Debugging

RE: SEGGER Embedded Studio Part 2 - Monitor Mode Debugging

awneil — Mon, 08 Oct 2018 10:06:05 GMT

[quote] #How to make MMD work in any (sic) application [/quote]

That list will only work for applications without a SoftDevice.

For applications with a SoftDevice, an extra J-Link command is required:

[embed:dc8ab71f-3b98-42d9-b0f6-e21e02a0f8e2:c9a43b36-e977-46d3-a4e2-d5df6eb28ffe:type=text&text=mon%20exec%20SetMonModeVTableAddr%3D0x1f000]

Where the 0x1f000 must be changed to match the FLASH_START value.

See: https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/f/nordic-q-a/38438/a-working-demo-of-monitor-mode-debug-mmd-on-sdk-15-please/151972#151972

And: https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/b/blog/posts/monitor-mode-debugging-with-j-link-and-gdbeclipse

Also: https://github.com/NordicPlayground/j-link-monitoring-mode-debugging

RE: SEGGER Embedded Studio Part 2 - Monitor Mode Debugging

awneil — Thu, 13 Sep 2018 12:06:16 GMT

"At the top of main.c add ' NVIC_SetPriority(DebugMonitor_IRQn, 7ul);' to be the lowest priority possible (7 on nRF52)"

(I removed the irrelevant nRF51 bits - see separate comment)

Note that this is not the recommended Priority given here: https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/b/blog/posts/monitor-mode-debugging-with-j-link-and-gdbeclipse

"Using priority level 6 allows breakpoints to be set in the on_ble_evt function and is the recommended level for most applications"

RE: SEGGER Embedded Studio Part 2 - Monitor Mode Debugging

awneil — Wed, 12 Sep 2018 16:56:22 GMT

Note that MMD is not licensed on the on on-board J-Link of nRF dev boards - you will get a message like this:

RE: SEGGER Embedded Studio Part 2 - Monitor Mode Debugging

RK — Sat, 23 Jan 2016 00:57:27 GMT

Yes I've used MMD a couple of times. It's 2 orders of magnitude better than normal debugging even though it's not 100% absolutely perfect. I found it was great for breaking, looking at the state of things, then letting the code run on for a while and doing the same again. I did find that if I single stepped over code constantly, eventually it would break in the softdevice in a similar way to normal debugging, so I'd say it stays 99% out of the way of the softdevice but if you hammer at it, you'll probably break in the end.

I also confused myself a bit because code was running while I was stopped and so you had to be aware that 'current state' wasn't necessarily quite what you thought.

It's another great tool to have in your tool belt. With this plus RTT most things you can attempt debugging on the fly without disrupting the softdevice operations. It's really time everyone moved on from UARTS. I haven't yet tried any of the ETM trace stuff, I think there's yet more options for good debugging and hopefully profiling there. I note that Segger also has just released 'SystemView' which I haven't got working yet (think I don't have my trace properly configured) which looks like another great tool for performance tuning and looking 'under the hood' and as we discussed offline there's the JLink Debugger as well which you can just throw a binary into and get some results out quickly. So it's been a killer week for Segger!

RE: SEGGER Embedded Studio Part 2 - Monitor Mode Debugging

Michael Dietz — Fri, 22 Jan 2016 15:15:56 GMT

RK: So have you used MMD on the nRF52 to help debug BLE applications? How helpful was it for you if you have? We will work on getting a package for the nRF series.

RE: SEGGER Embedded Studio Part 2 - Monitor Mode Debugging

RK — Fri, 22 Jan 2016 15:04:04 GMT

No I can't find those options either - there are a lot of options in the full Crossworks, I don't even know what half of them do, SES has a well-chosen subset of them.

I hope they put out a package for the NRF series soon, it will make configuring new projects just that little bit easier. Currently Tools .. Package Manager just shows a few for Freescale, NXP and a few others.

RE: SEGGER Embedded Studio Part 2 - Monitor Mode Debugging

Michael Dietz — Fri, 22 Jan 2016 14:50:12 GMT

Thanks for the catch, MMD is not supported on Cortex M0. I'm going to remove nRF51 notes from this blog post.

No I don't think the JLink command has to come from SES. In IAR you have a macro file that sends this command but it does call JLink Commander. You can also execut "exec SetMonModeDebug=1" from JLink.exe and then debug your application. I haven't seen either of those options in SES maybe SEGGER can answer better.

RE: SEGGER Embedded Studio Part 2 - Monitor Mode Debugging

RK — Fri, 22 Jan 2016 14:31:35 GMT

I didn't know the Cortex M0 supported MMD, I thought it was just M3, M4 and M7, so I never tried it before I started working with the nRF52 series, wish I'd known.

Do you have to supply the actual JLink command for SES, the SetMonDebugMode=1, on Crossworks, which as we know is quite similar, there are two defined properties, 'Monitor Mode Debug' and 'Monitor Mode Memory' which you can set and do it for you. I haven't had a chance to look and see if they exist on SES or not.

RE: SEGGER Embedded Studio Part 2 - Monitor Mode Debugging

Michael Dietz — Fri, 22 Jan 2016 14:03:58 GMT

Hey, I will make sure something is posted for Keil next week. Setting it up in Keil & IAR is very similar to what was done in this post for SES. So I will most likely edit this post with a section about making it work in Keil & IAR.

RE: SEGGER Embedded Studio Part 2 - Monitor Mode Debugging

Adrian Eggenberger — Fri, 22 Jan 2016 13:49:52 GMT

This MMD looks great to me. It solves the biggest problem when debugging nRF5x devices. An example for GCC and Keil would be awesome!