connecting nrf52840dk to nrf52840dongle uart examples

RE: connecting nrf52840dk to nrf52840dongle uart examples

user7377 — Mon, 23 May 2022 13:27:56 GMT

Hi,

[quote user="Jim Ellyson"]So the bluetooth connection is good now. I need to work on figuring out the serial comm errors. Timing? Buffers?[/quote]

It looks like the log buffer is filling up faster than it can be emptied or it is simply too small. If that is the case, you can increase CONFIG_LOG_STRDUP_BUF_COUNT.

[quote user="Jim Ellyson"]I'm not sure if I did something offensive to the bootloaders in the older dongles, or if they're just old.
Is it possible to obtain a bootloader image from nordic to reflash the bootloader on the old dongles?[/quote]

There are some minor differences between different dongle versions, but fundamentally they should all be compatible. This one has the latest revision IC with improved APPROTECT, but it is programmed with the same bootloader hex file as the older dongles in production. You can find a link to download the production hex file in the nRF52840 dongle programming tutorial (search for pca10059_bootloader.zip). Note that there are some pitfalls when using a debugger with the dongle, as explained in that tutorial

RE: connecting nrf52840dk to nrf52840dongle uart examples

user116179 — Sat, 21 May 2022 16:10:42 GMT

Greetings Einar,

Thank you for your reply.

If I flash the DK as peripheral and Dongle as central, and debug peripheral.
without the dongle being powered, I get the following output with no errors.

[00:00:02.314,147] <inf> fs_nvs: 8 Sectors of 4096 bytes
[00:00:02.314,147] <inf> fs_nvs: alloc wra: 0, fd0
[00:00:02.314,147] <inf> fs_nvs: data wra: 0, 1c
[00:00:02.314,392] <inf> sdc_hci_driver: SoftDevice Controller build revision:
0e e7 c5 66 67 18 3c ac b3 d2 cc 81 a3 dc f1 c0 |...fg.<. ........
c0 36 02 22 |.6."
[00:00:02.321,807] <inf> bt_hci_core: No ID address. App must call settings_load()
[00:00:02.321,838] <inf> peripheral_uart: Bluetooth initialized

When I fire up central on the dongle, I get the following output without error.
Hooray!

If I start sending serial data, I get the following output.

[00:00:02.912,780] <inf> fs_nvs: 8 Sectors of 4096 bytes
[00:00:02.912,780] <inf> fs_nvs: alloc wra: 0, fd0
[00:00:02.912,780] <inf> fs_nvs: data wra: 0, 1c
[00:00:02.913,024] <inf> sdc_hci_driver: SoftDevice Controller build revision:
0e e7 c5 66 67 18 3c ac b3 d2 cc 81 a3 dc f1 c0 |...fg.<. ........
c0 36 02 22 |.6."
[00:00:02.920,379] <inf> bt_hci_core: No ID address. App must call settings_load()
[00:00:02.920,440] <inf> peripheral_uart: Bluetooth initialized
[00:00:03.253,753] <inf> peripheral_uart: Connected DF:FE:3E:E2:44:AE (random)
[00:00:14.654,235] <inf> peripheral_uart: Received data from: DF:FE:3E:E2:44:AE (random)
[00:00:14.754,394] <inf> peripheral_uart: Received data from: DF:FE:3E:E2:44:AE (random)
[00:00:14.854,278] <inf> peripheral_uart: Received data from: DF:FE:3E:E2:44:AE (random)
[00:00:14.954,345] <inf> peripheral_uart: Received data from: DF:FE:3E:E2:44:AE (random)
[00:00:15.054,290] <inf> peripheral_uart: Received data from: DF:FE:3E:E2:44:AE (random)
[00:00:15.154,327] <inf> peripheral_uart: Received data from: DF:FE:3E:E2:44:AE (random)
[00:00:15.254,241] <inf> peripheral_uart: Received data from: DF:FE:3E:E2:44:AE (random)
[00:00:15.354,309] <inf> peripheral_uart: Received data from: DF:FE:3E:E2:44:AE (random)
[00:00:15.454,315] <inf> peripheral_uart: Received data from: <log_strdup alloc failed>
[00:00:15.554,229] <inf> peripheral_uart: Received data from: <log_strdup alloc failed>
[00:00:15.654,205] <inf> peripheral_uart: Received data from: <log_strdup alloc failed>
[00:00:15.754,211] <inf> peripheral_uart: Received data from: DF:FE:3E:E2:44:AE (random)
[00:00:15.854,217] <inf> peripheral_uart: Received data from: DF:FE:3E:E2:44:AE (random)
[00:00:15.954,193] <inf> peripheral_uart: Received data from: DF:FE:3E:E2:44:AE (random)
[00:00:16.054,290] <inf> peripheral_uart: Received data from: DF:FE:3E:E2:44:AE (random)
[00:00:16.154,174] <inf> peripheral_uart: Received data from: DF:FE:3E:E2:44:AE (random)
[00:00:16.254,180] <inf> peripheral_uart: Received data from: DF:FE:3E:E2:44:AE (random)
[00:00:16.354,187] <inf> peripheral_uart: Received data from: DF:FE:3E:E2:44:AE (random)
[00:00:16.454,284] <inf> peripheral_uart: Received data from: DF:FE:3E:E2:44:AE (random)
[00:00:16.554,229] <inf> peripheral_uart: Received data from: <log_strdup alloc failed>
[00:00:16.654,144] <inf> peripheral_uart: Received data from: <log_strdup alloc failed>
[00:00:16.754,150] <inf> peripheral_uart: Received data from: <log_strdup alloc failed>
[00:00:16.854,156] <inf> peripheral_uart: Received data from: DF:FE:3E:E2:44:AE (random)
[00:00:16.954,254] <inf> peripheral_uart: Received data from: DF:FE:3E:E2:44:AE (random)
[00:00:17.054,138] <inf> peripheral_uart: Received data from: DF:FE:3E:E2:44:AE (random)
[00:00:17.154,113] <inf> peripheral_uart: Received data from: DF:FE:3E:E2:44:AE (random)
[00:00:17.254,119] <inf> peripheral_uart: Received data from: DF:FE:3E:E2:44:AE (random)
[00:00:17.354,187] <inf> peripheral_uart: Received data from: DF:FE:3E:E2:44:AE (random)
[00:00:17.454,101] <inf> peripheral_uart: Received data from: DF:FE:3E:E2:44:AE (random)
[00:00:17.554,138] <inf> peripheral_uart: Received data from: DF:FE:3E:E2:44:AE (random)
[00:00:17.654,174] <inf> peripheral_uart: Received data from: <log_strdup alloc failed>
[00:00:17.754,089] <inf> peripheral_uart: Received data from: <log_strdup alloc failed>
[00:00:17.854,064] <inf> peripheral_uart: Received data from: <log_strdup alloc failed>
Ad Infinitum... Sad face.

So the bluetooth connection is good now. I need to work on figuring out the serial comm errors. Timing? Buffers?

I got a new dongle and programmed as peripheral, with the DK as central and I get no connection error in debug.
Hooray!
The new dongle date code is 2.1.0 /2021.51.

The dongles I was having the error with, have date codes 1.2.0 /2020.19

I'm not sure if I did something offensive to the bootloaders in the older dongles, or if they're just old.
Is it possible to obtain a bootloader image from nordic to reflash the bootloader on the old dongles?

Thank you.

RE: connecting nrf52840dk to nrf52840dongle uart examples

user7377 — Thu, 19 May 2022 14:53:26 GMT

Hi,

I see, there is another issue then. If I test with unmodified examples from 1.9.1 with a DK as central and dongle as peripheral, I get this log, as expected:

00> [00:00:00.011,566] <inf> fs_nvs: 8 Sectors of 4096 bytes
00> [00:00:00.011,596] <inf> fs_nvs: alloc wra: 0, fe8
00> [00:00:00.011,596] <inf> fs_nvs: data wra: 0, 0
00> [00:00:00.011,749] <inf> sdc_hci_driver: SoftDevice Controller build revision: 
00>                                          0e e7 c5 66 67 18 3c ac  b3 d2 cc 81 a3 dc f1 c0 |...fg.<. ........
00>                                          c0 36 02 22                                      |.6."             
00> [00:00:00.016,784] <inf> bt_hci_core: No ID address. App must call settings_load()
00> [00:00:00.016,784] <inf> central_uart: Bluetooth initialized
00> [00:00:00.018,890] <inf> central_uart: Scan module initialized
00> [00:00:00.018,920] <inf> central_uart: NUS Client module initialized
00> [00:00:00.029,571] <inf> central_uart: Scanning successfully started
00> [00:00:15.718,414] <inf> central_uart: Filters matched. Address: C6:A3:38:69:C3:45 (random) connectable: 0
00> [00:00:16.038,696] <inf> central_uart: Connected: C6:A3:38:69:C3:45 (random)
00> [00:00:16.139,862] <inf> central_uart: MTU exchange done
00> [00:00:17.647,277] <inf> central_uart: Pairing completed: C6:A3:38:69:C3:45 (random), bonded: 1
00> [00:00:17.647,552] <inf> central_uart: Security changed: C6:A3:38:69:C3:45 (random) level 2
00> [00:00:18.339,721] <inf> central_uart: Service discovery completed

You get error 9, which is BT_SECURITY_ERR_UNSPECIFIED. I do not immediately have any other theories. Do you by any chance have two DKs, so that you can easily get logs from the peripheral side and debug that as well? Or try with the peripheral on the DK and central on the dongle and share the log from the peripheral?

RE: connecting nrf52840dk to nrf52840dongle uart examples

user116179 — Wed, 18 May 2022 18:21:26 GMT

Greetings Einar,

I'm not sure if this is a bonding issue.

I added CONFIG_BT_SMP_ALLOW_UNAUTH_OVERWRITE=y as the last line under the "ENABLE BONDING" group in the prj.conf file in both central_uart and peripheral_uart samples, Reloaded thru Segger for Nordic V5.60 with clean build directory box checked, recompiled and re-flashed both binaries to their respective boards. I still get the exact same output in the debug terminal.

Any alternative theories?

Thank you

RE: connecting nrf52840dk to nrf52840dongle uart examples

user7377 — Wed, 18 May 2022 17:21:11 GMT

Hi,

To do it programatically you need to call bt_unpair(). But if the issue here is just something that happened when testing, for instance because you flashed both peers with the respective firmware and then reased and re-flashed one of them, a simple fix would be to erase and reprogram both devices. If you do, erasing will also remove any bonding data and they can pair again.

Edit: If this is indeed the issue, you can also change the configuration to allow repairing by adding CONFIG_BT_SMP_ALLOW_UNAUTH_OVERWRITE=y to your prj.conf.

RE: connecting nrf52840dk to nrf52840dongle uart examples

user116179 — Wed, 18 May 2022 15:38:16 GMT

Greetings Einar,

Thank you for your reply.

Pardon my ignorance, but how does one go about deleting a bond?

Thank you

RE: connecting nrf52840dk to nrf52840dongle uart examples

user7377 — Wed, 18 May 2022 14:01:25 GMT

Hi,

It looks like the devices bonded before, but you deleted the bonding information (perhaps did a full flash erase?) one one of the devices? If so, the fix is to delete the bond on the other device as well so that they can pair.