BLE Advertising Stops Prematurely in Matter SiLabs Lighting Example

[Chapoly1305]

Summary

BLE advertising in the Matter (CHIP) SiLabs lighting example firmware stops after 50-200ms of virtual time instead of continuing for the expected 15-minute commissioning window. This prevents BLE commissioning from working properly in Renode emulation.

Environment

• Renode Version: 1.16.0 (29f80e8-202512311735)
• Build: SiliconLabsSoftware fork, built with .NET 8.0
• Platform: Linux
• Board: BRD4186C (EFR32MG24 Mighty Gecko)
• Firmware: Matter SiLabs Lighting Example (BRD4186C-matter-silabs-lighting-example.out, 72MB with debug symbols)

Expected Behavior

BLE advertising should continue every ~100ms for at least 15 minutes (Matter commissioning window), transmitting advertisement packets on channels 37, 38, and 39 (BLE advertising channels 0, 12, 39).

Expected frame count in 10 seconds: ~100 frames

Actual Behavior

BLE advertising stops completely after 50-200ms of virtual time, with only 1-20 frames transmitted.

Actual frame count in 10 seconds: 1-20 frames (highly variable)

Timeline Example:

First frame:  00:00:00.052ms
Last frame:   00:00:00.180ms
Active:       128ms (1.28% of test)
Silent:       9.82 seconds (98.72% of test)

Reproducibility

Highly non-deterministic - multiple runs with identical configuration produce different results:

Run	Frames	Last Frame Time	Notes
1	1	52ms	Only one frame
2	13	154ms	Better, but still stops early
3	19	200ms	Most frames, still fails

Steps to Reproduce

1. Compile Matter 1.4.2. ./scripts/examples/gn_silabs_example.sh ./examples/lighting-app/silabs/ ./out/lighting-app BRD4186C
2. Clone the SiliconLabs Renode fork: git clone git@github.com:SiliconLabsSoftware/renode.git
3. Build with .NET: ./build.sh --net
4. Create test script reproduce_issue.resc:

emulation CreateBLEMedium "wireless"
mach create "matter"
machine LoadPlatformDescription @platforms/boards/silabs/brd4186c.repl
sysbus LoadELF @matter/BRD4186C-matter-silabs-lighting-example.out
cpu VectorTableOffset `sysbus GetSymbolAddress "__Vectors"`
connector Connect sysbus.radio wireless

# Enable radio logging to see BLE frames
logLevel -1 sysbus.radio

# Run for 10 seconds
emulation RunFor @10

4. Run: ./renode --console --disable-xwt reproduce_issue.resc
5. Observe: Only a few "Sending frame" messages appear in first 200ms, then complete silence

Evidence of Issue

Console Output

[INFO] radio: Sending frame at 00:00:00.052243460 on channel 39 (Phy_BLE_2_4GHz_GFSK): D6-BE-...
[INFO] radio: Sending frame at 00:00:00.052921170 on channel 12 (Phy_BLE_2_4GHz_GFSK): D6-BE-...
[INFO] radio: Sending frame at 00:00:00.053621170 on channel 0 (Phy_BLE_2_4GHz_GFSK): D6-BE-...
... (a few more frames) ...
[INFO] radio: Sending frame at 00:00:00.180221170 on channel 12 (Phy_BLE_2_4GHz_GFSK): D6-BE-...
(then silence for remaining 9.8 seconds)

Other Observation:

• issue persists without any plugins
• Not stopped by application. (breakpoints on sl_bt_advertiser_stop never triggered)
• CPU continues executing, peripheral access continues
• issue persists regardless of timing configuration

Files for Reference

• Platform definition: platforms/boards/silabs/brd4186c.repl
• CPU definition: platforms/cpus/silabs/efr32s2/efr32mg24.repl
• Test script: reproduce_issue.resc (attached)

reproduce_issue.resc.zip