Most recent 'nrfutil device' programmer can't read included .hex firmware files anymore / This repo unsupported?

[EskoDijk]

Firmware files are included in .hex format in this repo. The most recent programmer 'nrfutil device' can't read this format, it seems.

Programmer version:

~/sniffer$ nrfutil device -V
nrfutil-device 2.5.1 (3e5d1ee 2024-09-03)
commit-hash: 3e5d1eec241ea7c30250d2e082cbaf111f6b3dea
commit-date: 2024-09-03
host: x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu
build-timestamp: 2024-09-03T13:46:41.857868289Z
classification: nrf-external

Error message:

~/sniffer$ nrfutil device program --firmware nrf802154_sniffer/nrf802154_sniffer_nrf52840dongle.hex 
[00:00:00] ------   0% [D02B62C6E79F] Failed, [sdfu] firmware file extension .hex is not supported
Error: One or more program tasks failed:
 * D02B62C6E79F: [sdfu] firmware file extension .hex is not supported, code: Argument

The programmer does work for .zip firmware files though but these aren't included in this repo.

Answer from Nordic support is to use another source of the firmware: https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/f/nordic-q-a/114969/nrfutil-device-program-results-in-sdfu-firmware-file-extension-hex-is-not-supported

From which it sounds like this repo should be deprecated?

[e-rk]

I suggest using the nRF Connect for Desktop to program the dongle.

Answer from Nordic support is to use another source of the firmware

The support ticket mentions nRF Sniffer for Bluetooth LE.
This repository is for the nRF Sniffer for IEEE 802.15.4, which is a different radio protocol.

[EskoDijk]

The support ticket mentions nRF Sniffer for Bluetooth LE. This repository is for the nRF Sniffer for IEEE 802.15.4, which is a different radio protocol.

Thanks! Yes, although it was for another protocol the issue hit was quite similar. It can be solved also by using a .zip version of the same hex file - so in principle also the .zip file versions could be added to this repository as an alternative to installing the desktop app. (I have this working now based on a .zip I got via a Thread Group Nordic contact.)

[Damian-Nordic]

There's another nrfutil command that can be used to convert HEX files to ZIP (after running nrfutil install nrf5sdk-tools):

nrfutil nrf5sdk-tools pkg generate --hw-version 52 --sd-req=0x00 \
    --application "fw.hex" \
    --application-version 1 "fw.zip"

Would that work for you?

[EskoDijk]

@Damian-Nordic Thanks, that's useful to know!

Overall, my goal was to have a way to create the latest Nordic dongle sniffer easily without having to install anything else than the latest 'nrfutil' package with the CLI tool. (So, no further Windows or Linux desktop applications etc). It looked like this repo tried to do that but wasn't maintained to support the latest nrfutil programmer in an easy way. But maybe this isn't the goal of this repo.