Issues with shell not echoing / buffering input characters

Hi,

I have started looking into your issue and will come back to you tomorrow.

Best regards,

Marte

Hi,

I have tried to reproduce your issue, but I have not been able to so far. Have you made any changes to the sample or any library or driver files used by the sample? Have you tested using a different DK and/or different terminal, i.e. PuTTY?

Best regards,

Marte

Hi,

I have discussed this with a colleague who have seen a similar issue on Linux in the past. However, in their case the problem was with the computer, as they saw the same issue with different devices (from other producers) and only on their computer. I do have some suggestions for things to try and test out, so hopefully one of them will help, or will at least narrow down the issue.

First, I have seen reports of similar behavior with other devices on Linux. In one of those cases using miniterm solved the issue. It seemed to be related to stty settings, so running stty on the port when you have the port open in different terminal emulators might give you some information, e.g:

stty -F /dev/ttyACM0

The settings used by miniterm and not by the terminal emulators causing issues were the following:

-echoke -echoctl -ignbrk brkint -onlcr

I see all of these settings when I check on my side. So please check with miniterm, and check the stty settings.

To further narrow it down if the above does not work, can you try the following things?

• Test the DK on another computer
• Test with another device on your computer if you see the same lag there
• Test with different cables

Please also check what version of nrfjprog and JLink you have installed. You can find this by running

nrfjprog -v

Best regards,

Marte

Hi.

I have rebuilt the shell project removing the additions to the proj.conf file for RTT, and also cleaned the build directory when opening the project (so to return to the "pre-rtt" state for lack of better terminology).

Opening gtkterm and running the command i see the following 

speed 115200 baud; line = 0;
min = 1; time = 0;
ignbrk -brkint -icrnl -imaxbel
-opost -onlcr
-isig -icanon -iexten -echo -echoe -echok -echoctl -echoke

without gtkterm running i see 

speed 9600 baud; line = 0;
-brkint -imaxbel

running miniterm i see a similar problem where the latest character is not properly displayed, stty gives this info

speed 115200 baud; line = 0;
min = 0; time = 0;
-brkint -icrnl -imaxbel
-opost -onlcr
-isig -icanon -iexten -echo -echoe -echok -echoctl -echoke

The issue presented itself even on another computer running the same version of Ubuntu

I already tried different cables but the issue persisted even there

nrfjprog -v gives the following

nrfjprog version: 10.15.1 external
JLinkARM.dll version: 7.60c

Hi,

Please try updating to the latest version of nRF Command Line Tools (nrfjprog), v10.15.4. You can find the download here: https://www.nordicsemi.com/Products/Development-tools/nrf-command-line-tools/download#infotabs. Also try downgrading to v7.58b of JLink, since that is the version bundled with this version of nRF Command Line tools, and thus the version it has been tested with.

Have you tried programming the DKs with another computer?

Can you also try using the nRF USB on the DK instead of using the USB for the onboard debugger, to see if the issue might be because of the interface MCU? For this you will need to make changes to the sample so that the shell uses USB instead of UART. I have already done this, so you can simply program the file zephyr_usb.hex to your DK, but I will also upload the project as a zip-folder. After programming the device, move the USB cable from the interface MCU USB to nRF USB on the side of the DK. The device should show up as a USB serial device or Zephyr Zigbee shell, and you can connect to it using GTKTerm as normal.

Best regards,

Marte

Hi.

We had not tried to program the DK with another computer.
Furthermore, after updating nrfjprog, downgrading jlink and trying on the DK's USB with the project you've given us, the problem does not appear to present itself (although it took a couple presses of the reset button before gtkterm stopped appending garbage characters (like "[1;32m" and "^[") after uart:~$, characters that were intepreted by the shell as (obviously incorrect) commands)

We will try with the updated nrfjprog / downgraded jlink to see if our normal build of the shell sample keeps manifesting such problems, as well with our normal build modified to route the shell output to USB

Addendum/update: trying to use the shell sample in the nrf SDK with the updated nrfjprog/downgraded jlink still caused the same issue on gtkterm (to note: this is the same sample that originally displayed the problem, i suppose this excludes the possibility of nrfjprog/jlink being the source of the issue?)

I am attaching a zip file with our shell sample, even though it should be the same as the one in the SDK

Hi,

I have asked my colleagues, but besides the one I mentioned previously no one else has seen this error or are able to reproduce it. 

Since the issue does not present itself when using nRF USB it might be an issue with the firmware on the interface MCU, so you can try uploading new firmware.

1. Download the JLink interface MCU firmware from nRF52833 DK > Downloads.
2. Unplug the DK from the computer.
3. Hold in the IF BOOT/RESET button on the DK while plugging it in, and keep it pressed until LED5 starts to blink to make the device enter bootloader mode.
4. The device should show up as BOOTLOADER.
5. Drag and drop the firmware image into the DK.

Best regards,

Marte

Hi,

I have asked my colleagues, but besides the one I mentioned previously no one else has seen this error or are able to reproduce it. 

Since the issue does not present itself when using nRF USB it might be an issue with the firmware on the interface MCU, so you can try uploading new firmware.

1. Download the JLink interface MCU firmware from nRF52833 DK > Downloads.
2. Unplug the DK from the computer.
3. Hold in the IF BOOT/RESET button on the DK while plugging it in, and keep it pressed until LED5 starts to blink to make the device enter bootloader mode.
4. The device should show up as BOOTLOADER.
5. Drag and drop the firmware image into the DK.

Best regards,

Marte

Hi.

Apologies for the late answer, we've just tried what you suggested. Now the DK prints to UART the following string when we press the reset button:
*** Booting Zephyr OS build v2.7.99-ncs1-1 ***
Though it doesn't print anything else. Where do we go from here exactly?

Hi,

Make sure you have v7.58b of JLink, then try to flash the Zigbee shell sample to your DK again.

Best regards,

Marte

Hi.

We did as told and all that happened is that now we cannot send commands via gtkterm. We only see uart:~$ and nothing more, pressing keys on the keyboard doesn't seem to send or echo anything


EDIT: after flashing and then inserting the JLink interface MCU firmware it now behaves as expected.
Thank you.