How to get console_printf in controller layer to show up in Serial output?

[vlucent]

Investigating an issue and but currently can't get console_printf messages to show up in Serial for \NimBLE-Arduino\nimble\nimble\controller\src\ble_ll_ctrl.c

[krotname]

console_printf in this tree is not wired to Arduino Serial. In src/nimble/console/console.h it expands directly to C printf, so it only appears wherever the target's stdio is routed.

For the normal NimBLE-Arduino debug path, use the logging config instead:

• host stack: MYNEWT_VAL_BLE_HS_LOG_LVL (0 = DEBUG, 5+ = none)
• C++ wrapper: MYNEWT_VAL_NIMBLE_CPP_LOG_LEVEL (4+ = DEBUG)

Those settings are documented in docs/Command_line_config.md, and NimBLELog.h uses NIMBLE_LOGx macros for the wrapper logs.

If you add raw console_printf calls inside nimble/controller/src/ble_ll_ctrl.c, the log-level settings will not redirect them to Serial. First check whether a plain printf("test\n") reaches your serial monitor on your board/core. If it does not, console_printf from the controller layer will not either.

For a local debug build you can patch src/nimble/console/console.h to call a target-specific print function, but routing that to Serial.printf is an application/platform decision and can be awkward from the low-level C controller code.

[h2zero]

If this is an esp32 then the controller is unused as espressif provides it separately.

For nRF platforms you can just call printf.

[vlucent]

If this is an esp32 then the controller is unused as espressif provides it separately.

For nRF platforms you can just call printf.

Ah indeed it is an esp32. printf does seem to work in host files like in ble_hs_hci and ble_hs_hci_evt.c but unfortunately, the source of the mysterious LL Response Timeout eludes me. Nothing anomalous shows up in the tx and rx opcodes so I can only guess it's a peculiarity with the controller and peripheral device. Maybe calling updateConnParms should just be standard practice in the onConnect callback in nimBLEClient. nimBLEServer example code already does that anyway.

[h2zero]

Are you using an older arduino core? That's an old bug in the controller that was resolved quite some time ago

[vlucent]

I don't think so. The board is a ESP32-C6 with Arduino-ESP32 core: 3.3.10
Also, I reproduced the issue with ESP-IDF: 6.0.1
sounds like its related to this: espressif/esp-nimble#116
edit: this problem doesn't seem to occur on the ESP32-S3

[h2zero]

Might be a new controller issue then, the S3 uses a different controller base than the C6.