Debugging STM32F303CCT6: .pioinit:15: Error in sourced command file: Load failed

oroyalrider · October 18, 2022, 7:37am

Hi there,

I’m currently starting to work with an STM32F303CCT6 microcontroller on an older SP Racing F3 flight controller board. To save some time, I use CubeMX for general configuration and the STM32 HAL Library.

Here is my platform.ini:

[env:genericSTM32F303CB]
platform = ststm32
board = genericSTM32F303CB
build_flags =
    -I include/Drivers/CMSIS
    -I include/Drivers/CMSIS/Device/ST/STM32F3xx/include
    -I include/Drivers/STM32F3xx_HAL_Driver
    -I include/Drivers/STM32F3xx_HAL_Driver/Legacy
upload_protocol = custom
upload_command = ${platformio.packages_dir}/tool-stlink/st-flash write $SOURCE 0x8000000
debug_tool = stlink

My test program to turn on the onboard LED didn’t work, so I hooked up an ST-Link V2 (one of the small USB Dongles). When I now try to start debugging with the IDE, it just ends without any feedback. So I tried the command line debugger using piodebuggdb -x .pioinit
This gives me the following result:

Reading symbols from e:\TUBcloud\Office\Projekte\2022\TestProgramSpracingF3\.pio\build\genericSTM32F303CB\firmware.elf...done.
PlatformIO Unified Debugger -> https://bit.ly/pio-debug
PlatformIO: debug_tool = stlink
PlatformIO: Initializing remote target...
xPack OpenOCD x86_64 Open On-Chip Debugger 0.11.0+dev (2021-10-16-21:19)
Licensed under GNU GPL v2
For bug reports, read
        http://openocd.org/doc/doxygen/bugs.html
hla_swd
Info : The selected transport took over low-level target control. The results might differ compared to plain JTAG/SWD
Info : DEPRECATED target event trace-config; use TPIU events {pre,post}-{enable,disable}
Info : tcl server disabled
Info : telnet server disabled
Info : clock speed 1000 kHz
Info : STLINK V2J39S7 (API v2) VID:PID 0483:3748
Info : Target voltage: 3.237062
Info : stm32f3x.cpu: Cortex-M4 r0p1 processor detected
Info : stm32f3x.cpu: target has 6 breakpoints, 4 watchpoints
Info : starting gdb server for stm32f3x.cpu on pipe
Info : accepting 'gdb' connection from pipe
target halted due to debug-request, current mode: Handler HardFault
xPSR: 0x00000003 pc: 0x2100b508 msp: 0xbf00b5d8
Info : device id = 0x10036422
Info : flash size = 256kbytes
0x2100b508 in ?? ()
Loading section .init, size 0xc lma 0x8000
Loading section .text, size 0x11b8 lma 0x800c
.pioinit:15: Error in sourced command file:
Load failed

I couldn’t figure out what the .pioinit does, so I dont know what failed to load.

I also tried to the st-link debugging server st-util from here: GitHub - stlink-org/stlink: Open source STM32 MCU programming toolset
On VScode, this gives me the following output:

Preparing firmware for debugging...
Processing genericSTM32F303CB (platform: ststm32; board: genericSTM32F303CB)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Verbose mode can be enabled via `-v, --verbose` option
CONFIGURATION: https://docs.platformio.org/page/boards/ststm32/genericSTM32F303CB.html
PLATFORM: ST STM32 (15.4.1) > STM32F303CB (32k RAM. 128k Flash)
HARDWARE: STM32F303CBT6 72MHz, 32KB RAM, 128KB Flash
DEBUG: Current (custom) External (blackmagic, cmsis-dap, jlink, stlink)
PACKAGES:
 - toolchain-gccarmnoneeabi @ 1.70201.0 (7.2.1)
LDF: Library Dependency Finder -> https://bit.ly/configure-pio-ldf
LDF Modes: Finder ~ chain, Compatibility ~ soft
Found 0 compatible libraries
Scanning dependencies...
No dependencies
Building in debug mode
Compiling .pio\build\genericSTM32F303CB\src\Drivers\STM32F3xx_HAL_Driver\stm32f3xx_hal.o
Compiling .pio\build\genericSTM32F303CB\src\Drivers\STM32F3xx_HAL_Driver\stm32f3xx_hal_cortex.o
Compiling .pio\build\genericSTM32F303CB\src\Drivers\STM32F3xx_HAL_Driver\stm32f3xx_hal_dma.o
Compiling .pio\build\genericSTM32F303CB\src\Drivers\STM32F3xx_HAL_Driver\stm32f3xx_hal_exti.o
Compiling .pio\build\genericSTM32F303CB\src\Drivers\STM32F3xx_HAL_Driver\stm32f3xx_hal_flash.o
Compiling .pio\build\genericSTM32F303CB\src\Drivers\STM32F3xx_HAL_Driver\stm32f3xx_hal_flash_ex.o
Compiling .pio\build\genericSTM32F303CB\src\Drivers\STM32F3xx_HAL_Driver\stm32f3xx_hal_gpio.o
Compiling .pio\build\genericSTM32F303CB\src\Drivers\STM32F3xx_HAL_Driver\stm32f3xx_hal_i2c.o
Compiling .pio\build\genericSTM32F303CB\src\Drivers\STM32F3xx_HAL_Driver\stm32f3xx_hal_i2c_ex.o
Compiling .pio\build\genericSTM32F303CB\src\Drivers\STM32F3xx_HAL_Driver\stm32f3xx_hal_pwr.o
Compiling .pio\build\genericSTM32F303CB\src\Drivers\STM32F3xx_HAL_Driver\stm32f3xx_hal_pwr_ex.o
Compiling .pio\build\genericSTM32F303CB\src\Drivers\STM32F3xx_HAL_Driver\stm32f3xx_hal_rcc.o
Compiling .pio\build\genericSTM32F303CB\src\Drivers\STM32F3xx_HAL_Driver\stm32f3xx_hal_rcc_ex.o
Compiling .pio\build\genericSTM32F303CB\src\Drivers\STM32F3xx_HAL_Driver\stm32f3xx_hal_spi.o
Compiling .pio\build\genericSTM32F303CB\src\Drivers\STM32F3xx_HAL_Driver\stm32f3xx_hal_spi_ex.o
Compiling .pio\build\genericSTM32F303CB\src\Drivers\STM32F3xx_HAL_Driver\stm32f3xx_hal_tim.o
Compiling .pio\build\genericSTM32F303CB\src\Drivers\STM32F3xx_HAL_Driver\stm32f3xx_hal_tim_ex.o
Compiling .pio\build\genericSTM32F303CB\src\Startup\startup_stm32f303cctx.o
Compiling .pio\build\genericSTM32F303CB\src\main.o
Compiling .pio\build\genericSTM32F303CB\src\stm32f3xx_hal_msp.o
Compiling .pio\build\genericSTM32F303CB\src\stm32f3xx_it.o
Compiling .pio\build\genericSTM32F303CB\src\syscalls.o
Compiling .pio\build\genericSTM32F303CB\src\sysmem.o
Compiling .pio\build\genericSTM32F303CB\src\system_stm32f3xx.o
Linking .pio\build\genericSTM32F303CB\firmware.elf
Checking size .pio\build\genericSTM32F303CB\firmware.elf
Advanced Memory Usage is available via "PlatformIO Home > Project Inspect"
RAM:   [          ]   3.8% (used 1252 bytes from 32768 bytes)
Flash: [          ]   4.3% (used 5680 bytes from 131072 bytes)
Building .pio\build\genericSTM32F303CB\firmware.bin
========================================================================== [SUCCESS] Took 1.31 seconds ==========================================================================Reading symbols from e:\TUBcloud\Office\Projekte\2022\TestProgramSpracingF3\.pio\build\genericSTM32F303CB\firmware.elf...done.
PlatformIO Unified Debugger -> https://bit.ly/pio-debug
PlatformIO: debug_tool = custom
PlatformIO: Initializing remote target...
0x2100b508 in ?? ()
.pioinit:14: Error in sourced command file:
Target does not support this command.

Meanwhile, the debugging server says the following:

2022-10-18T09:23:05 WARN common.c: NRST is not connected
2022-10-18T09:23:05 INFO common.c: F3xx: 40 KiB SRAM, 256 KiB flash in at least 2 KiB pages.
2022-10-18T09:23:05 INFO gdb-server.c: Listening at *:4242...
2022-10-18T09:23:15 WARN common.c: NRST is not connected
2022-10-18T09:23:15 INFO common.c: F3xx: 40 KiB SRAM, 256 KiB flash in at least 2 KiB pages.
2022-10-18T09:23:15 INFO gdb-server.c: Found 6 hw breakpoint registers
2022-10-18T09:23:15 INFO gdb-server.c: GDB connected.
2022-10-18T09:23:15 ERROR gdb-server.c: cannot recv: -2
2022-10-18T09:23:15 INFO common.c: Go to Thumb mode
2022-10-18T09:23:15 INFO gdb-server.c: Listening at *:4242...

This is weird, because the NRST port on the board is connected to the RST port on the STlink.

I also used STM32CubeProgrammer to inspect the microcontroller and this seems to work fine. So does someone know what the problem could be?

Thanks in advance!

maxgerhardt · October 18, 2022, 9:00am

Does your LED blink code use any of the critical SWD lines? Usually PA13+PA14.

oroyalrider · October 18, 2022, 9:49am

No it doesnt. It only uses PB3 and the only code besides the generated code from CubeMX is this oneliner:

HAL_GPIO_WritePin(LED_GPIO_Port, LED_Pin, GPIO_PIN_SET);

maxgerhardt · October 18, 2022, 10:24am

These are conflicting infos. It should be fine to chose any F303CC microcontroller here, so set

board = robotdyn_blackpill_f303cc

instead.

Also, I don’t see the line for setting the linker script that STM32Cube generated – that’s very important. See board_build.ldscript and GitHub - maxgerhardt/pio-stm32h7-stm32cube-freertos. That may be the reason why your chip isn’t starting up correctly.

oroyalrider · October 18, 2022, 1:34pm

Oooha, well this was it! Now it works just perfect!
I didn’t know that I still need to provide the linker script… I thought platformIO would do this for me. Thanks!

maxgerhardt · October 18, 2022, 2:05pm

In the baremetal case (no framework = .. line), PlatformIO will choose an auto-generated linkerscript, however, the section names etc. in this don’t match the CubeMX framework for e.g. the vector table etc, so you have to use the one that CubeMX generated. For the other case with a framework, PlatformIO links with the correct linkerscript of the framework.