Solving the USB Coldfire Multilink puzzle?? (general Coldfire BDM issue)

[mjbcswitzerland]

Hi All

Freescale EVBs are delivered with a USB Coldfire Multilink and Freescale DEMO board are delivered with an integrated one. They work great with CodeWarrior (most of the time), can be used with CF Flasher and even with Eclipse and GDB.

However there are quite frequently problems reported that they stop working. Often reinstalling the driver does the trick and gets it going again but sometimes the problem is a bit more stuborn.

Looking through this, the CW and various other forums shows that there is an issue and several uTasker users have also been plagued with it, including myself. If you look at the P&E forum there are several interesting questions about devices which have worked for some time and then stopped. Unfortunately P&E has a strange forum - there are question (although dying out) but never answers - perhaps Freescale (obviously a close partner of P&E) could rap some nuckles there - it is great PR to have a nice forum set up to show how customer caring they are but a bit of a slap in the face when obviously it is just that - a PR gag!!

But to the technical issue in hand:
I have 2 FREESCALE Coldfire EVBs sitting on my desk. Then I have 2 USB Coldfire MULTILINKs.
I can debug and program both boards with both BDMs perfectly using CW6.3.

Some time ago I could work with CF Flasher just fine.

Today none of them will work with CF Flasher (they can't reset the chip) and none wants to work with sprite (used together with GDB in Eclipse environment) - the reported error is the same.

There was a period of time when one of the BDMs didn't want to work with my lap top but did work well with a PC. At the moment both work with the lap top (but only with CW6.3).
Today I also reinstalled all drivers to be sure that nothing was corrupted (did happen once) but didn't get any change.

My question is - can any one explain what we are seeing? Is there some timing in the grey-zone between working and failing? It would be nice to sort this issue out because obviously a lot of Freescale users are affected by it.

Does any one have input?
I will try to get around to recording the BDM waveforms with a logic analyser in successful and failing cases, using different PCs to possibly get a first idea. At the moment my Eclipse work is on hold because the BDMs are on strike again....

Feedback welcome.

Regards

Mark Butcher
www.uTasker.com
 

[JWW]

Mark,

I have some ideas on what might be the problem.  We noticed the same issue awhile back and spent some time trying to fix it.  It looks like it is a problem with where the various installers place the P&E libaries and where the various debuggers (Codewarrior, CF_Flasher,etc) look for that driver.  When Codewarrior, 6.3, installs it places the driver in a non-common location.  If memory serves me correctly.

CF_Flasher expects that driver to be in the system directory instead of in a sub-directory of Codewarrior.

Try a test for us.. Go to the third party tools folder in Codewarrior's directory structure (rev 6.3).  And see if you have an "extra" CF_Flasher.. 

Try running that CF_Flasher and let me (us) know if that makes a difference.  This version of CF_Flasher is quite old, but typically shows that we have a driver install problem when it works and the new CF_Flasher doesn't.

Also, we've published a completely new CF_Flasher that is a bit smarter.  Can you take a peek at that and let me (us) know if it behaves differently?

Thanks

-JWW

[mjbcswitzerland]

Hi JWW

Here are the results.
1. Yes there is a version of CF Flasher in the sub-directory.
When I run it it doesn't have the M52235EVB so I tried with the M5213EVB.
This works - I could for example delete FLASH.
With the CF 3.1.1 which I had previously installed it doesn't work and give an error saying that debug mode was not possible and that I should check power and connections.

Conclusion - this is pointing to a driver install problem as you point out.

2. I downloaded and installed CF Flasher 3.1.5
This was also successful!!

To be sure I reinstalled CF Flasher 3.1.1 and it failed again.

Then I reinstalled CF Flasher 3.1.5 again and it was again successful.


Conclusion: CF Flasher 3.1.5 is indeed smarter since it manages to work even with what seems to be a driver installation problem.


Now it does seem that measuring the BDM signals with the logic analyser will not help. It remains to understand what the "driver installation" problem is and how to generally correct it.
I expect that with CF Flasher 3.1.5 there will be no further issues. I have always been able to fix CW issues by reinstalling the P&E driver so it leaves just the problem with the sprite driver, which is still on strike.

From these details can you give a tip where one could look??

Thanks and best regards

Mark