MSP-FET430UIF: power LED went off, no comm. CDC present

Hi Sergio,
I will discuss it with our tools expert, but it looks like the firmware of the MSP-FET430UIF is damaged, which could only be repaired by re-flashing it, as you stated, with another debugger. There is also no easy plug-in connect to perform this. You'd need to solder cables to the PCB.
So most probably a new UIF is the easiest and fastest solution.

Best regards
Peter

Peter Spevak said:

...
So most probably a new UIF is the easiest and fastest solution.

I guess that you are thinking on new MSP-FET, and not on UIF that is 15 years old and slow F1xx based device.

I would advice someone to buy the used one, if it is priced up to 25% of the new MSP-FET.

Hi Zrno,
You're right, many thanks for your comment, since some time TI is offering only the new version of the Debug Interface, which is, as you stated the MSP-FET, can be found at this page www.ti.com/.../msp-fet .
It is faster, offers a higher drive capability, and has some additional features, like e.g. the Energy Trace.

Best regards
Peter

Hi Sergio,
discussing your case with the tools experts on our side, there are quite some questions on your setup description. From your initial entry, it seems you're using a Linux System in combination with IAR, but up to our knowledge there is no IAR version capable of running on a LINUX system.

So please could you send us a more detailed description on your setup, IAR-Workbench version details, operating system of your PC...

Independent of that the recommendation to purchase the latest debug interface MSP-FET remains valid.

Best regards
Peter

Sergio R. Caprile said:

There is a MSP-FET430UIF-CDC (COM18) entry among my devices in W7, and Linux detects it as ttyACM0...

Just to clear this...

There is separate hardware chip (TUSB3410) inside FET-UIF, that is used as USB / UART bridge. And because of this, even MSP430F1612 master chip is bricked, device will be enumerated by OS just fine, and related port will be present on OS.

 New MSP-FET or eZ-FET Lite does not have extra hardware chip, and USB is handled by master device. In that case, bricked device will not be enumerated by OS.

Hi Peter, zrno,

Peter Spevak: no, too much information, I tried to condense and ended up confusing you. I'll try to ellaborate now.

The "W7" in my post stands for "Windows 7". My working environment is IAR Worbench 7.3 on Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 on a virtual machine with a passed-through USB controller. If you read closely again, you'll see I describe the CDC entry in the Device Administrator. I've been using this for quite a time, since I belong to the "if it works then don't update" class of thinkers. I used an older IAR before, so I guess probably around two years.

As some of the troubleshooting recommendations stated the obvious "try it on another PC", I installed MSP Flasher on Linux, a CentOS 7 host for the virtual machines running kernel 4 from elrepo. That is the ttyACM0 stuff, the device enumerates but communication with the F1612 seems broken.

I would agree with you that the easiest and fastest option is to buy a new one, but I live overseas and that translates to slow, cumbersome, and may-not-arrive, unless I'm willing to spend extra bucks on a courier. That plus customs would easily approach 250 bucks. I'm checking with some colleagues for a loan (I own several SbW kits but my current deadline is mods to a legacy and trusty F149-based industrial controller which is JTAG only). I'm also willing to revive an old XP machine with a parallel port to try flashing (and even working on my deadline...) before I decide to order from TI/Digi-Key (I've built the parallel port hack back in the 2000's). Yes, the new tool would have more bells and whistles, I just need it for in-circuit debugging.

zrno soli: Yes, I figured that out, and checked the schematics and performed some measurements inside too. The MSP430F1612 is powered at 3.3V (no dead LDO),TD and RD are at Vcc level (so "something" seems to have initialized the UART), its xtal is oscillating.

So... I'm waiting for ideas and advice. I'm proficient on comm protocols and soldering/desoldering so don't be afraid to suggest wild stuff. I have a deadline and I'm a desperate man.

Regards!

PS: I guess I'll have to flash an image with a bootloader, I'll appreciate pointers to that; I already have an old version of the Protronic software lurking around.

OCY reported here...    e2e.ti.com/.../720660   that is possible to use PIF to modify UIF firmware. My advice is that you do deep web search for this (related to OCY or not), and something should pop up.

I never used msp-debug, but I remember that is mentioned, as software tool for recovering bricked device...

https://sourceforge.net/p/mspgcc/mailman/message/32527628/

Hi Sergio,
many thanks for the additional information. Although we still might need some further information, the next step we would like to take is to ask you to, check the permission settings on the USB devices by typing in ls –la /dev/ttyACM*
Out tools experts are suspecting, that potentially the USB permissions are not set correctly, which in case of our tools on Windows systems is managed automatically, but in your specific case with a Linux machine might not have happened correctly. Please post us the response of your system on the above command. Many thanks in advance.

Best regards
Peter

Well, besides i belong to the proper group, I've run the flasher as root:
```
[root@Workstation MSPFlasher_1.3.17]# ./MSP430Flasher -e ERASE_ALL
* -----/|-------------------------------------------------------------------- *
* / |__ *
* /_ / MSP Flasher v1.3.16 *
* | / *
* -----|/-------------------------------------------------------------------- *
*
* Evaluating triggers...done
* Checking for available FET debuggers:
* Found USB FET @ ttyACM0 <- Selected
* Initializing interface @ ttyACM0...
# Exit: 19
# ERROR: Interface Communication error
*
* ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Driver : closed (No error)
* ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
*/
[root@Workstation MSPFlasher_1.3.17]#
```

And, just in case that would be your next suggestion, I installed in Windoze and run with the same results:
```
C:\ti\MSPFlasher_1.3.17>MSP430Flasher -e ERASE_ALL
* -----/|--------------------------------------------------------------------
* / |__
* /_ / MSP Flasher v1.3.16
* | /
* -----|/--------------------------------------------------------------------
*
* Evaluating triggers...done
* Checking for available FET debuggers:
* Found USB FET @ COM18 <- Selected
* Initializing interface @ COM18...
# Exit: 19
# ERROR: Interface Communication error
*
* ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Driver : closed (No error)
* ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
*/
```

There is 4.1 section inside http://www.ti.com/lit/ug/slau656b/slau656b.pdf ...