5 years, 5 months ago.

Error while connecting to CPU message

I recently purchased a Thunderboard Sense 2 board. Briefly, when I compile and upload programs to it in the online mbed IDE, a FAIL.TXT file is appearing in the drive/folder associated with the board. This file contains the text "Error while connecting to CPU." Any suggestions regarding how I should proceed?

A more detailed description of my situation follows...

I first tried to upload my simple mbed 2.0 Blink program to the board (this is my standard starting point when working with new boards). The compilation appeared to succeed and I saved the .bin file to the TB004 drive/folder. However, the onboard LED did not blink as expected and a FAIL.TXT file appeared in the TB004 drive/folder. This file contained a single line of text - Error while connecting to CPU. I next tried compiling the mbed 2.0 mbed_blinky_low_power program (https://os.mbed.com/teams/SiliconLabs/code/mbed_blinky_low_power) that is linked from the Thunderboard Sense 2 platform page on mbed. Again, the compilation worked and the binary file transferred, but the FAIL.TXT file showed the Error while connecting to CPU message. Finally, I tried the mbed 5.0 mbed_os_example_blinky program (https://os.mbed.com/teams/mbed-os-examples/code/mbed-os-example-blinky). The results were the same.

I next updated the firmware on the Thunderboard. I followed the instructions linked from the platform page - https://os.mbed.com/teams/SiliconLabs/wiki/Silicon-Labs-Firmware. This required downloading the full Simplicity Studio app, a nearly 10 GB installation! The firmware update appeared to work. After the firmware update, I tried uploading the mbed blink programs again and got the same results. Note: Immediately after the firmware update, the green LED in the middle of my Thunderboard was blinking. After attempting to upload the blink programs it was not.

At this point, I decided I should try a non-mbed demo, so I went to the www.silabs.com/start-sense webpage listed on the card included with my board (which displays as https://www.silabs.com/support/getting-started/thunderboard/thunderboard-sense). This demo involves displaying Thunderboard sensor data on a phone via a Bluetooth connect. At this point, I figured I needed to restore the software on the board, so opened Simplicity Studio and found the SOC – ThunderBoard 2 Bluetooth demo code. I uploaded it to the board. After this the green LED on the Thunderboard was blinking again.

The upload appeared to work. I next put the Thunderboard app on my phone. Initially, the app couldn’t find/connect to the Thunderboard. I tried pressing the Thunderboard reset button. This didn’t resolve the issue. I next cycled the power on the Thunderboard by disconnecting and reconnecting the USB cable. After this, the phone app showed a Thunder Sense # 46263 connected message and appeared to work. I could monitor board position, temperature, humidity, etc. on my phone. Pretty neat!

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