TM4C129XNCZAD: LMFlash hangs on Erasing when attempting download

Greg Winters

Part Number: TM4C129XNCZAD

Trying to use LMFlash to program the chip.

Up to now I have been using a Spectrum Digital XDS200 to program our board and it works fine.

To allow our board house to program the board without having to get an XDS200 and load all the associated tools, I am investigating allowing programming via LMFlash.

I programmed BOOTCFG to monitor PB1 for a low at reset to trigger the boot loader.

True to form, when I force PB1 low at reset, the board does not show its normal light pattern and stays in this mode.

Pointing LMFlash at the correct COM port and tell it to Program using a .hex file as the binary.

The status at the bottom of the screen transitions from 'Idle' to 'Erasing' which to me indicates that it found 'something' out there that looks good (If I don't have the boot loader running it soon shows an error box).

Soon after LMFlash indicates 'Erasing' my board goes through its reset sequence and comes up normally. LMFlash hangs on 'Erasing' for a long time and eventually comes up with a download error box.

I have verified that if I do not push 'Program' on LMFlash, my board stays in the boot loader apparently indefinitely (at least a minute til I stopped monitoring it).

Any ideas on what is happening here?

over 7 years ago

0 Bob Crosby over 7 years ago

TI__Guru 72500 points

LM Flash Programmer is expecting a .bin file, not a hex file. I think the CPU hung trying to execute the ASCII image of a .hex file. You might connect to the board with CCS and the XDS200 and examine the contents of the flash after using LM Flash Programmer to see if my theory is correct.

0 Greg Winters over 7 years ago in reply to Bob Crosby

Intellectual 720 points

Unfortunately that's not it. I found the way to convert my file into .bin format and it does the same thing.

As indicated in the first post, my previously downloaded program is not erased, after LMFlash switches to 'Erasing' my previously installed program boots. But if LMFlash is not run, it stays in boot loader mode.

The error that finally shows up is: "**ERROR**: Failed to send download command!"

0 Bob Crosby over 7 years ago in reply to Greg Winters

TI__Guru 72500 points

Can you use LM Flash Programmer to program a blank part? Do you have a resistor (`4.7K) between RBIAS and GND?

0 Greg Winters over 7 years ago in reply to Bob Crosby

Intellectual 720 points

RBIAS is open (we are not using ethernet).
We do not have any unprogrammed boards at this point.

0 Bob Crosby over 7 years ago in reply to Greg Winters

TI__Guru 72500 points

There is an erratum that the ROM bootloader does not run properly is RBIAS is left open. A 4.7K 10% resistor is good enough to resolve the issue.

0 Greg Winters over 7 years ago in reply to Bob Crosby

Intellectual 720 points

I cannot say at this moment that it actually resolves the issue since we can't get at the pin without a board turn, but we'll leave it at that for now.

0 Bob Crosby over 7 years ago in reply to Greg Winters

TI__Guru 72500 points

That is unfortunate. If this is a reprogramming at your board house, you can avoid the erratum by doing a specific call to ROM_UpdateUART() in your application code when you see PB1 low at reset. (With the boot configuration register unprogrammed.) The application code would have to configure the UART pins and baud rate before the call. The call to ROM_UpdateUART() bypasses the default polling of all ROM bootloader interfaces so it does not get stuck on the Ethernet interface without the RBIAS resistor.

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TM4C129XNCZAD: LMFlash hangs on Erasing when attempting download