Frequently Asked Questions

BME554L (Spring 2026)

Published

January 6, 2026

MacOS Troubleshooting

Ejection Warnings & Serial Communication Blocks

The MacOS can try to mount your development kit as a storage device, and this can (a) interfere with flashing the device, (b) prevent you from seeing VCOM port output, and (c) annoyingly pop up a warning dialog window saying that your storage device was not unmounted properly. To avoid this, you can do the following: https://docs.zephyrproject.org/latest/develop/flash_debug/nordic_segger.html#disabling-the-mass-storage-device-functionality

Permission Denied when Upgrading nrfutil

When attempting to run nrfutil self-upgrade or other subsequent commands detailed for nrfutil, on macOS, if you encounter permission denied, navigate to the directory where you saved the nrfutil binary (via terminal) and run chmod u+x nrfutil to adjust its permissions. You can verify the effect of this by running ls -l before and after.

Permission Issues when Flashing

The nRF Command Line Tools are in the process of converting from using a legacy nrfjprog tool to nrfutil. Some of the latest versions of the command line tools on the MacOS have bugs that prevent you from running the legacy tools without root privileges. If you run into this issue, you can try downgrading your nRF Command Line Tools to an earlier version (specifically, v10.24.0).

Tab Autocompletion

If your Mac terminal doesn’t have tab autocompletion enabled when typing out your long branch name you created among other git commands, follow the steps from this link.

This will only work in your Mac terminal. If you’d like to enable this in VS Code as well, open up your preferences with Cmd + ,, and then navigate through this:

  • User -> Extensions -> Git.
  • Scroll down to the setting labeled Terminal Git Editor and check this box.
  • You will need to restart your existing terminal inside of VS Code if one is already open.