J-Link upload script with additional bootloader (.hex) file

binux · January 16, 2020, 1:05pm

Hi all,

I’m currently testing platformio together with a Adafruit nrf5832 Feather. In special I’m trying to upload the Arduino generated firmware file via my J-Link. This works fine. However, I noticed that the upload script is always erasing the whole chip before upload. This leads to the issue that the feather isn’t booting up after the upload_script finished. However if I flash the bootloader afterwards manually, everything works fine.

So now I’m asking myself: Is it possible to either make the J-Link upload script not erase the chip (to keep the bootloader), or to additionally specify the bootloader.hex so the upload_script is flashing it aswell. I know I could create my own upload script in Python, but I’m curios if there is an easier way.

Thanks!

maxgerhardt · January 16, 2020, 6:57pm

What exact platformio.ini do you have? The adafruit-arduino scripts already implement loading the bootloader with in the complete upload process

github.com

platformio/builder-framework-arduino-nrf5/blob/dcd348dd9b0976557db87ef384f1fc9f740fa801/adafruit.py#L183


      
              CPPDEFINES=[
                  "%s" % softdevice_name.upper(),
                  "NRF52_" + (softdevice_name.upper()),
                  "SOFTDEVICE_PRESENT"
              ]
          )
          
          
hex_path = join(FRAMEWORK_DIR, "bootloader", board_name)
          
          
for f in listdir(hex_path):
              if f == "{0}_bootloader-{1}_{2}_{3}.hex".format(
                      variant, bootloader_version, softdevice_name, softdevice_version):
                  env.Append(DFUBOOTHEX=join(hex_path, f))
          
          
if "DFUBOOTHEX" not in env:
              print("Warning! Cannot find an appropriate softdevice binary!")
          
          
# Update linker script:
          ldscript_dir = join(CORE_DIR, "linker")
          mcu_family = board.get("build.mcu")
          ldscript_name = board.get("build.ldscript", "")

Do you get a warning when uploading?

binux · January 17, 2020, 9:07am

I don’t get this warning. My platformio.ini looks like this:

[env:adafruit_feather_nrf52832]
platform = nordicnrf52
board = adafruit_feather_nrf52832
framework = arduino
lib_extra_dirs = ~/Documents/Arduino/libraries

monitor_speed = 115200

debug_tool = jlink
upload_protocol = jlink

However, I noticed that it seems like more a reset issue than a missing bootloader. Sometimes the board just stays in bootloader mode instead of doing a reset.

maxgerhardt · January 17, 2020, 10:31am

Can you post the result of a verbose upload, starting at the invocation of the uploader? (“Verbose Upload” task or pio run -t upload -v in a PIO terminal)

binux · January 21, 2020, 1:27pm

I don’t know why, but it worked now for several days. So it’s luckily not an issue anymore.
Thanks.