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How to (easily) flash a custom .hex file with debugger?

Aina R

Hello,

I am developping on a firmware using a bootloader which verifies main application's CRC prior to let it start. To do this, I am generating an extra .hex file with data for bootloader added to the .hex file created by Keil. 

I thought I just had to rename my .hex file with data to the name of the one generated by keil... But Keil's debugger is loading the .axf file, not the .hex one :-(

The only workaround I found was to load my .hex with data with another flash programmer, and then start debugging with Keil to have debug symbols. 

Does anyone know how I could do this directly with Keil ?

Thanks a lot in advance!

Parents
  • 0 in reply to Ron Wedge

    Hi Ron,

    Thank you for the reply.

    I succeeded to load my custom .hex file with the debugger, but as it does not contain any debug information, this will not be very useful for debugging.

    Basically, I need to :

    1.  load a .hex file with application's CRC to be able to start the application

    2.  load application's .axf file which contains debugging data for application to be able to debug it.

    I manage to do step 1 or step 2 independently, but not one after the other with keil's debugger.

    Regards,

    Aina

Reply
  • 0 in reply to Ron Wedge

    Hi Ron,

    Thank you for the reply.

    I succeeded to load my custom .hex file with the debugger, but as it does not contain any debug information, this will not be very useful for debugging.

    Basically, I need to :

    1.  load a .hex file with application's CRC to be able to start the application

    2.  load application's .axf file which contains debugging data for application to be able to debug it.

    I manage to do step 1 or step 2 independently, but not one after the other with keil's debugger.

    Regards,

    Aina

Children
  • 0 in reply to Aina R

    If this is purely for debug, consider having your firmware understand this is the case via a magic value in RAM or the vector table, so it can skip the signing/checksum test for debugging. Perhaps probe the ITM/DWT registers to understand it is running via a debugger.

    The script may be able to LOAD two images (.AXF). I've not needed the symbols for both (loader/app) in order to run them and understand what's happening in the debugger, but if I did, I'd merge the .ELF/AXF files and the symbol tables.

  • 0 Arm Employee Badge in reply to Westonsupermare Pier

    You could also you the INCREMENTAL option with the LOAD debug command to load more than one hex file at once, without needing to merge / rerun a CRC on the result

  • +1 in reply to Kevin B

    This is what I am doing, but loading of my first .hex file (the one containing application's CRC) fails with keil's debugger, although I have no problem while loading it with STM32CubeProgrammer.

    I am getting the error "target memory verification failure", followed by "error 57: illegal address (0x800C000). (Note: 0x800C000 is my application's starting point)

    Other strange thing: if I first load my .hex with STM32CubeProgrammer, and then start a debug session with Keil, I get no error.