Keyboard doesn't connect to dongle (docs issue?)

[timber rune]

Recently I tried to switch out my dongle against another board. I followed the new guide in the zmk docs. Now I don't get any output when I press any keys.

I did flash the reset-firmware before flashing the real firmware and made sure to try and reset the boards to get them to connect to each other, but none of that worked. I tried it with two different dongle-boards with the same result.

I now think that I might have misunderstood something in the guide. Can someone more knowledgable than me have a quick look and tell me if everything's in the right place?

Here is my config: https://github.com/tim-hilt/zmk-config-tbkmini

You can see my adaptations to the new guide in the most recent commit.

[fickle panther]

The content of these deleted files in your linked commit looks mostly correct to me.
You still need the left and right parts and then enable ZMK_SPLIT for them, otherwise they will work as a standalone unibody keyboard.
Quote from the doc:

Make a file called Kconfig.shield, if one does not exist already. Add the following lines to it, ...

(that could be a bit ambiguous)

You don't need to set ZMK_BLE and ZMK_USB (they are already y by default) but that shouldn't do any harm.

One thing this deleted version is missing is the ZMK_SPLIT_BLE_CENTRAL_PERIPHERALS and the two other config.

You might want to change BT_MAX_CONN and BT_MAX_PAIRED to 7. The left and right side each take one pairing slot and one connection, that leaves 0 for other devices. Unless that's what you want then it's probably fine.

[timber rune]

So to summarize the suggested changes:

• bring back the two split halves in Kconfig.shield
• raise BT_MAX_CONN and BT_MAX_PAIRED

and then the current version should work. Did I get that right?

[fickle panther]

Yep. I can't guarantee I looked over everything but that's the right direction.

[timber rune]

Cool, thanks. I’ll try it out and report back 🙂

[timber rune]

hmm... That didn't help unfortunately. Same behavior: No keypresses are output to the host.

I also put the physical_layout in the root node in the dongle.overlay file. I saw this being done in another overlay file , but that also didn't help unfortunately :/

[fickle panther]

I don't have time to dig deeper right now (maybe later but no promises), logging can help you figure out if it's a connection problem or kscan/matrix transform/layout problem.

Use the settings_reset firmware to clear settings when switching between central/peripheral roles, maybe there's old pairing info still on the controller not cleared.

!logging

[bright fiber]

https://zmk.dev/docs/development/usb-logging

[timber rune]

Thanks! The pointer to USB logging was great. However, if there is any clue in the output, I didn't find it yet. I'll post it in the help-chat, maybe one of the guys there has some time to dig deeper or has some immediate idea

This is the boot-to-idle log output of the keyboard:

https://pastebin.com/e5TxhycA

(TL;DR: It prints "only USB ready", so no connection to dongle)

and this is the boot-to-idle log output of the dongle:

https://pastebin.com/hhJE461i

(TL;DR: It prints "Not sending, no active address for current profile". Keeps scanning and finds devices, but doesn't connect to anything as far as I can see)

[fickle panther]

https://github.com/tim-hilt/zmk-config-tbkmini/blob/main/boards/shields/tbkmini/Kconfig.defconfig

Missing setting ZMK_SPLIT to y for the left and right sides, so they are working as standalone keyboards right now.

[timber rune]

Oh whaaaat

let me try

So this is what's missing

[fickle panther]

Yep. ZMK_BLE defaults to y so can skip that, but including it doesn't hurt anything

[timber rune]

Ah ok. thanks

[fickle panther]

You have two typos here https://github.com/tim-hilt/zmk-config-tbkmini/blob/main/boards/shields/tbkmini/Kconfig.shield#L1-L5

Should be SHIELD_TBKMINI_LEFT
Not SHIELD_TKBMINI_LEFT

Tip for future debugging: You can check the final resolved kconfig settings and devicetree in the build logs, for example https://github.com/tim-hilt/zmk-config-tbkmini/actions/runs/13056774749/job/36429707775#step:12:1057

As you can see there's no ZMK_SPLIT