nRF52840 PDK programming trouble

[fguerzoni]

Hi, I have serious troubles when trying to program the board with softdevice (s140).

1. nRFGo Studio: nRFGo Studio installed and running fine. When I connected the board I received a notification to update jlink firmware. Update procedure ended with a board which is not programmable. I got the following error message: No device detected or readback protection may be set. I haven't found any info about that on PDK user guide. I tried the recovery procedure without any results. The nRF5x programming link is always grayed.
2. GCC makefile: where is the 'flash_softdevice' file called by 'make flash_softdevice' I cannot find it.

Hope to have not bricked the board. Anybody could help?

thanks in advance F

[Roger Clark]

Did you try connecting using JFlash ?

If the nRFGo Studio didn't install the Segger tools you can download them directly from Seggers site.

Note. I found J-Flash will not write to the flash in these Nordic dev boards, but you should be able to connect and read the flash using JFlash

And JLink Commander is fully functional, so you could try that as well.

BTW. I received my nRF52840 PDK about a week ago, and I also did the firmware upgrade, but the upgrade was via JFlash not nRFGo. (though its likely to be the same firmware package)

And the update did not brick the board.

What confused me is that J-Flash will not write to the flash (you get a license error message)

But Keil etc can write to the flash (upload the app) using J-Link, so the underlying processes work fine its just the JFlash GUI that does not fully work with the PDK (and other Nordic eval boards)

[run_ar]

@fguerzoni:

1. I would recommend that you download the latest version of nRF5x toolset from the product page, and try to use nrfjprog to recover your device.
2. Which makefile / project is this?

[fguerzoni]

Thank you Roger, jFlash was already installed during nRFGo Stdudio installation. It works as you kindly pointed out. So I think your comment is the answer to my question.

I found very useful the 'Development with GCC and Eclipse' tutorial, which is what really matters to develop and flash and debug something to the board. So, as run_ar suggested, nrfjprog is the definitive tool.

@run_ar about point 2, it was my fault. 'flash_softdevice' is obviously a target in makefile. As it is 'flash' which is useful to download the binary to board.

thanks friends F

[Scott]

To the best of my understanding, it is illegal to use J-Flash with the Nordic dev boards - please correct me if I am wrong and explain how to enable it. Because I own a Segger J-Link Plus and cannot even use the J-Flash program with the Nordic dev boards. In trying to learn why not, I saw this on the Segger website: J-Link OBs (J-Link On Board) are single chip versions of J-Link which are used on various eval boards. It is legal to use J-Link software with these boards, provided that the eval board manufacturer has obtained a license from SEGGER. The following list shows the eval board manufacturer which are allowed to use J-Link OBs:

Embedded Artists
Energy Micro
IAR Systems
Micrium
Toshiba

www.segger.com/terms-of-use.html

[Scott]

run_ar - would you please explain how to use nrfjprog to recover a bricked nRF52840 preview development kit? Because I obediently updated the jlink firmware like the nRFgo Studio recommended and bricked the brand new dev kit out of the bag.

I had to muddle around (it does not show up in Windows 10 as an installed program) and finally found nrfjprog here: C:\Program Files (x86)\Nordic Semiconductor\nrf5x\bin

Then I used the help messages to piece together this with trial and error: nrfjprog --family NRF52 --recover

And this is what I got: Recovering device. This operation might take 30s. Erasing user code and UICR flash areas.

I went back to nRFgo Studio to program the soft device and the nRF52840 is still bricked. Obviously using the 'Recover' button in nRFgo Studio also fails to unbrick the device. Too bad I cannot attach a .jpeg screen shot from nRFgo Studio.