nrf_sniffer_2.0.0-beta-1_51296aa/PCA10040/windows 7 not working

[BramPeeters]

Hi,

I just spend a day trying to get the nrf_sniffer tool working.

The devzone.nordicsemi.com/.../ contained some very useful info but unfortunately it seems i am now stranded at a dead end.

First something that is not yet mentioned in that post: the serial lib does not work with higher numbered com ports. Eg I have already plugged a lot of ftdi cables in my pc and it got com port number 135. That does not work, only after i moved it to com port 5 the python code starting seeing the com port.

So after this point for about 1 happy second it seemed to be working showing packets in wireshark but then it just stopped. Quiting wireshark and starting it again and I got greeted with the following error:

Stopping wireshark again and unplugging replugging the board and it works again for a second. Stopping wireshark and connecting to the comport with teraterm and it shows a lot of data being output (unreadable hex i suppose or i am at the wrong baud rate).

So wild guess would be that the python part does not work correctly in processing the incoming data.... any suggestions ?

I also tried on a second windows 7 PC. There I do not even get the one second of good packets though i only tried twice (no packets at all). If i check with teraterm it still gives me a stream of data though so that part seems again OK.

Version info: Windows 7 64bit

Wireshark 2.4.4

python-2.7.14

pyserial: 3.4

nrf_sniffer_2.0.0-beta-1_51296aa

[shibshab]

One way to find the pyserial version is to open a python terminal and do

import serial

print serial.version

3.4

[BramPeeters]

Cool, thanks ! I am also at version 3.4

[Panometric]

I share your frustration with this tool, I need it, but it is not working well yet. Spend many hours trying... 

I have not seen your particular problem. But if you can try a clean Win10 machine, I got farther. I had trouble mixing 64 bit python with 32 bit Wireshark. Try both in 64 bit. 

In the bat file, specify the python27 version in case your path finds another first. "c:\python27\python "%~dp0nrf_sniffer.py"  %*"

in nrf_sniffer.py, I had to change:

import Sniffer, myVersion, Logger, UART -> from SnifferAPI import Sniffer, myVersion, Logger, UART

Then it will capture up until the first connection dis-connects, but then it hangs. The good news is that it follows the connection channel hops every time, unlike the Adadfruit. 

Good luck, and let's all hope Nordic puts some more effort into that software. 

[BramPeeters]

Haha, thanks for sharing your experiences, it helps a bit that I am not the only one close to throwing it out of the window :P.

Sometimes it worked a bit longer before hanging and I got to see some of the stuff I was looking for. But it remains completely unreliable/unstable. I makes me wonder how many takes it took to make the demo video on the product page :). Or was the previous version much more stable ??

Something i never got to work was going through bonding to exchange security keys (just works mode) and see the encrypted traffic afterwards. But for some reason he does not show anything from the encrypted traffic, not even the encrypted packets. According to the manual it should even be able to decrypt it if he was able to watch the bonding ... maybe some day :P