Programming and debugging iMXRT1170 EVK is very unreliable

[erling]

Hi.

We have been having a lot of issues with the tooling of iMXRT1170. It is not an exaggeration that we spend around 50% of the time just trying to flash and debug our application. It is very frustrating and I am looking for advice as to what could be the root cause of this. It seems as if there is something about our project which often leaves the MCU in a bad state where the debugger cannot establish contact with it.

We are currently using MCUXpresso 11.5.1 with Windows 10 and 11 and iMXRT1170 EVK. We have also tried the following:
- MCUXpresso 11.5.0, 11.4.1
- Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04
- macOS Big Sur
- iMXRT1170 uCOM dev-kit from Embedded Artists
- On-board EVK debugger
- MCU Link Pro
- MCU Link


We have not been able to get a stable and reliable programming/debug flow with any of these!!

The errors we are experiencing fall into these categories

1. Target not detected
When trying to program, only the M4 core is detected. Not the M7. Somehow the CPU is in a bad state? Power cycle sometimes helps. Sometimes power cycle also MCU Link, or even detach it.

2. Linkserver debug error: Flash driver checksum errors
Programming of board flash fails with mysterious errors. Typically we need to power cycle. This can be mitigated by only programming RAM.

3. Linkserver debug error: erase timeouts
Same as before

4. Wire ACK fault in DAP
This happens all the time. In the final stage before programming. There is no consistent way of getting past it. Often doing multiple power cycles of MCU and MCU-Link works.

5. Debugging: Suspend operations timeouts
When debugging often the debugger loses contact with the application and the debugging sessions just close. Power-cycle try again

6. Debugging: Application freezes on the first breakpoint
This ONLY happens when we are programming the application to RAM. Often when a breakpoint is hit, the application can not proceed. If we hit "step" it will just continue breaking on the same line. This goes away if we move back to programming Board Flash.

7. Application boots right into a fault
This also only happens when we program RAM. Sometimes the application boots right into a BusFault or MemoryFault. It is typically triggered by the ENET_QOS IRQ or other. Never happens when we program Board Flash.

I wanna again emphasize this. We spend close to 50% of our development time power-cycling and detaching and re-attaching MCU Links, and retrying build and debug. We would really like to use this product, but we cannot keep wasting so much time on the tools. The example projects seem to build and program more reliably. But they also fail occasionally. However, when our application is up-and-running it runs with no problems so there do not seem to be serious software bugs in the project. So what could cause this? I will gladly share logs and etc if that is useful. I am very grateful for any advice.

Erling

[carstengroen]

For what is is worth, I use Keil tools and Segger J-Trace with RT1176 and RT1173 with absolute success (own boards).

[jeremyzhou]

Hi,
Thank you for your interest in NXP Semiconductor products and for the opportunity to serve you.
Firstly, I'm sorry to hear that you waste a lot of time on reloving debug and program issues, next, I occasionally encounter a similar issue when I debug a large project, so I'd like to know whether you encounter the issue when debugging the demos in the SDK library.
Have a great day,
TIC

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[erling]

As I write in the post. Debugging and programming the SDK examples are more reliable. But it by no means "works everytime". Do you have any advice on ways we can change the settings of MCUXpresso to work around this? So far, the only thing that works for us is to power cycle both the EVK and MCU Link Pro when we get this issue (and it happens a lot).

[jeremyzhou]

Hi,
Thanks for your reply.
1) Do you have any advice on ways we can change the settings of MCUXpresso to work around this? So far, the only thing that works for us is to power cycle both the EVK and MCU Link Pro when we get this issue (and it happens a lot).
-- From my experience, I usually try the below steps to recover when encountering the similar issues you mentioned above.
1) Set the boot pins to Serial Downloader.
2) Power on the board, and debug the demo project.
3) After that, power off and recover the boot pins to the previous set, then power on again.
4) Give a debug again.

Have a great day,
TIC

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[auftrag2021]

I have almost exact the same problem as the post owner.

sometimes, I need do recover it by using serial downloader

What I am wondering is, is this problem caused by EVK on board debugger? (I am using the RT1170EVK on board debugger DAP-Link)

I have no expierence with other 3rd party debugger device. Can someone give any hint?