Connecting requires the following two things that are not available at boot:
- Valid time, which is needed to sign the JWT used for CoAP authentication
- Installed nRF Cloud credentials.
The module therefore retries. Entering STATE_CONNECTING publishes CLOUD_PRIV_CONNECT_ATTEMPT on the private channel priv_cloud_chan, and an attempt that finds no credentials with nrf_cloud_credentials_check(), finds no valid time, or fails in nrf_cloud_coap_connect(), schedules the next attempt CONFIG_APP_CLOUD_CREDENTIAL_RETRY_SECONDS later. Time is requested over NTP, and the date/time handler publishes an attempt of its own as soon as time arrives instead of waiting out the interval. See the main guide for how to install credentials and onboard the device.
Because an attempt is a single message, the module is back to waiting for messages between attempts, where it feeds its watchdog and answers CLOUD_DISCONNECT like any other request. What makes a single attempt long is the DTLS handshake in nrf_cloud_coap_connect(), which is why the module has a dedicated thread and a generous message processing budget.
The module posts pending Memfault data over the same CoAP session when the application asks for it with CLOUD_MEMFAULT_POST_REQUEST.