companion_radio: tear down QSPI peripheral when its init fails (fixes #2827)#2828
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companion_radio: tear down QSPI peripheral when its init fails (fixes #2827)#2828benskigomez wants to merge 1 commit into
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…eshcore-dev#2827) On nRF52 BLE companion builds, a failed external-flash init left BLE completely dead: the node never advertised on the Elecrow ThinkNode M6 on any firmware version, even though the same unit runs fine over LoRa and pairs over BLE under other firmware. Root cause: when nrfx_qspi_init() fails (the M6 returns NRFX_ERROR_TIMEOUT / 0xBAD0007 during QSPI activation), it has already enabled the QSPI peripheral and enabled QSPI_IRQn in the NVIC at priority 0 (reserved for the SoftDevice), and it does not clean any of that up before returning. The very next step, the SoftDevice enable in Bluefruit.begin(), then fails (returns false) and every later BLE call reports NRF_ERROR_SOFTDEVICE_NOT_ENABLED, so the node never advertises. USB companion builds are unaffected because they never enable the SoftDevice. Fix: on the QSPIFlash.begin() failure path, disable QSPI_IRQn and power the QSPI peripheral back down before continuing. This only runs on the failure path, so boards whose QSPI init succeeds are unaffected, and BLE now comes up cleanly even when the external flash is absent or fails to initialize. Validated on a ThinkNode M6: with the QSPI init still timing out, the SoftDevice now enables, the node advertises, and the MeshCore app pairs and exchanges frames.
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Backports upstream PR meshcore-dev#2828 (not yet merged) which addresses issue meshcore-dev#2827: ThinkNode M6 companion_radio_ble firmware doesn't advertise over BLE. Root cause chain: 1. nrfx_qspi_init() times out on M6 (returns NRFX_ERROR_TIMEOUT/0xBAD0007) — separate underlying issue tracked as meshcore-dev#2829 2. The failure leaves the QSPI peripheral enabled and QSPI_IRQn enabled in the NVIC at priority 0 3. Priority 0 is reserved for the SoftDevice 4. Subsequent Bluefruit.begin() (the SoftDevice enable) fails silently due to the priority-0 conflict 5. No SoftDevice = no BLE advertising = node invisible to scanners The customer's diagnostics traced this end-to-end; PR meshcore-dev#2828 has the fix. Add cleanup inside the QSPIFlash.begin() failure branch: - Disable QSPI_IRQn and clear any pending interrupt - Deactivate and disable the QSPI peripheral This frees priority 0 so the SoftDevice can start cleanly. The device falls back to InternalFS for persistent storage (the underlying QSPI issue itself is not fixed here — that's a separate investigation per issue meshcore-dev#2829). Existing storage capacity is reduced (internal flash only, no 2MB external) but BLE functionality is restored. Verified compile: ThinkNode_M6_companion_radio_ble builds clean. When upstream merges PR meshcore-dev#2828, this commit will rebase out cleanly.
AtlavoxDev
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Jun 26, 2026
Backports upstream PR meshcore-dev#2828 (not yet merged) which addresses issue meshcore-dev#2827: ThinkNode M6 companion_radio_ble firmware doesn't advertise over BLE. Root cause chain: 1. nrfx_qspi_init() times out on M6 (returns NRFX_ERROR_TIMEOUT/0xBAD0007) — separate underlying issue tracked as meshcore-dev#2829 2. The failure leaves the QSPI peripheral enabled and QSPI_IRQn enabled in the NVIC at priority 0 3. Priority 0 is reserved for the SoftDevice 4. Subsequent Bluefruit.begin() (the SoftDevice enable) fails silently due to the priority-0 conflict 5. No SoftDevice = no BLE advertising = node invisible to scanners The customer's diagnostics traced this end-to-end; PR meshcore-dev#2828 has the fix. Add cleanup inside the QSPIFlash.begin() failure branch: - Disable QSPI_IRQn and clear any pending interrupt - Deactivate and disable the QSPI peripheral This frees priority 0 so the SoftDevice can start cleanly. The device falls back to InternalFS for persistent storage (the underlying QSPI issue itself is not fixed here — that's a separate investigation per issue meshcore-dev#2829). Existing storage capacity is reduced (internal flash only, no 2MB external) but BLE functionality is restored. Verified compile: ThinkNode_M6_companion_radio_ble builds clean. When upstream merges PR meshcore-dev#2828, this commit will rebase out cleanly.
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Problem
On nRF52 BLE companion builds, a failed external-flash init leaves BLE completely dead. The Elecrow ThinkNode M6 never advertises over BLE on any firmware version (#2827), even though the same unit runs fine over LoRa and pairs over BLE under other firmware.
Root cause
When
nrfx_qspi_init()fails (the M6 returnsNRFX_ERROR_TIMEOUT/0xBAD0007during QSPI activation), it has already enabled the QSPI peripheral and enabledQSPI_IRQnin the NVIC at priority 0 (reserved for the SoftDevice) — and cleans none of it up before returning. The next step,Bluefruit.begin()enabling the SoftDevice, then fails; every later BLE call returnsNRF_ERROR_SOFTDEVICE_NOT_ENABLED, so the node never advertises. USB companion builds are unaffected because they never enable the SoftDevice.Fix
On the
QSPIFlash.begin()failure path, disableQSPI_IRQnand power the QSPI peripheral back down before continuing. Runs only on the failure path, so boards whose QSPI init succeeds are unaffected.Validation
On a ThinkNode M6 (with the QSPI init still timing out): the SoftDevice now enables, the node advertises, and the MeshCore app pairs and exchanges frames. Confirmed via boot-stage instrumentation that the SoftDevice enable goes from failing to succeeding once the peripheral is torn down.
Notes
The underlying M6 QSPI-init timeout is a separate issue (the custom QSPI flash driver doesn't bring up the
MX25R1635F); this PR makes BLE robust to that failure rather than fixing the flash itself.Closes #2225