nRF Connect Error "NRF_ERROR_TIMEOUT"

[Diogo]

I am trying to use the nRF Connect v1.0 RC with the pca10040 board. I followed the instructions of your [page] and when i open the serial port i got an error (Error occurred opening serial port. (NRF_ERROR_TIMEOUT)) as shown in the attached figure. I programmed the “connectivity_115k2_with_s132_2.0.1.hex” file by two ways: via drag and drop and by nrfjprog tool (version 8.4 and also 8.0) and i programmed ble example applications (with and without uart initialisation) with Keil uVision5. I noticed that the board receives the ASCII characters “*” “NUL” “ENQ” “NUL” “*” “*” and not respond any data. Any suggestion what i might be doing wrong or not doing?

[Bjørn Inge]

Hi Diogo,
from what you describe it sounds like you are doing things correctly.
Just to clarify, when you say you programmed ble example applications from Keil, you are doing it to a second board and not on top of the connectivity application?
What Windows version are you running? Are you running windows in a virtual machine?

[Diogo]

I programmed in the same board (pca10040). My windows version is windows 7 64 bits. I am not running windows in a virtual machine. Regarding the application that I program, it is working properly. i already programmed an application that initialises and uses the uart but this one only calls my interrupt events of uart. I also have tried to put an application that don’t uses at all any uart function, but I don’t know how the softdevice (“connectivity_115k2_with_s132_2.0.1.hex”) can interact with uart communication of nRF52 to respond to NRF Connect software on windows. Do i have to do some initialisation? What are the pins that uart communication of the softdevice use? (Are P0.08 and P0.06?). Note: I can see the serial message from the nRF Connect in windows (by Jlink CDC UART Port) but i don’t see any response from board.

[Bjørn Inge]

I fail to see what your other application has to do with nRF Connect, sorry if I'm missing anything obvious here. The merged connectivity and softdevice firmware (connectivity_115k2_with_s132_2.0.1.hex) needs to be programmed and run alone on the nRF52. No initialization is required, the connectivity application and nRF Connect synchronize automatically over uart (P0.08 and P0.06 + RTS/CTS on P0.05 and P0.07).

[Tony Garland]

I'm seeing a similar problem. I'm able to run Master Control Panel 3.10.0 just fine using USB dongle PCA10000 V 2.2.0 (2013.48). But I've been unable to get nRF Connect (1.0.0) to work in the same environment using the same dongle.

The environment is W7 running within a parallels 12 VM on OS X. I've also tried running nRF Connect directly under OS X (El Capitan 10.11.6), accounting for the known OS X issue work-arounds, and the results are always the same: "Error occurred opening serial port. (NRF_ERROR_TIMEOUT)."

I've manually programmed the dongle using nRFgo Studio under W7 with the related connectivity hex file (nRF51/S130 version in my case) and still no joy. The dongle seems to be found and programmed just fine, but whenever nRF Connect tries to talk to it, after successfully opening the COM Port, it reports the timeout.

Not sure what to try to solve this issue. Because of this, I've reverted to old faithful (Master Control Panel) and am unable to use nRF Connect under either OS X or W7.

[Bjørn Inge]

Hi, Tony,
nRF Connect does not support the PCA10000 dongle. For a list of compatible devices please have look at the Getting Started Guide under Supported Devices.