Computer Laboratory

Course pages 2016–17 (still under preparation!)

Trouble Shooting

The following offer guidance relating to common issues. If you don't find your problem listed here, you should check the lab issues wiki. You may also want to investigate some common mistakes in C.

General

Quartus

Qsys

Eclipse (NIOS II)

General

Extra time
If you miss lab sessions (e.g. due to illness) or you really 'just don't get it', we can usually help arrange extra supervisions in conjunction with your DoS.

Quartus

Programmer failure - cannot talk to tPad using usb-to-jtag programmer
  1. Check that you plugged your tPad into the right computer! The computer that you are using is most likely to be the one to the right of the monitor. We've been caught out by this before, particularly late on a Friday afternoon!
  2. Try unplugging the tPad from the computer and plugging it in again. You can check to see if it connected using jtagconfig which will report if a device is connected.
  3. Check the board is connected and that SW19 is set to RUN.
  4. If you have a problem when using the NIOS II IDE, stop any NIOS II consoles, such as the one opened by Eclipse: click the NIOS II Console tab and then the red stop button to terminate and remove the launch.
  5. Check that there is a udev rule installed for the USB device. Often on Ubuntu this is in /etc/udev/rules.d/ but on the MCS machines it should be in:
    /lib/udev/rules.d/55-mcs-usbblaster.rules
    If this rule does not exist then it may be installed during a reboot which, on the MCS machines, also updates various things.
...OpenCore Plus Status...Click cancel to stop using OpenCore Plus IP.... occurs after programming
The most likely cause if that you've brought your project in from home where you were using the web edition of the tools. Make sure that you delete the *_time_limited.sof file otherwise it will be incorrectly picked up by the programmer. In the programmer window you can click Change File... to specify which .sof file to use. Failure to use the correct .sof file will result in the wrong version of the design being which maked debugging "ineffective"!
...instantiates undefined entity...
A reference to a module cannot be resolved. Check the spelling of the module indicated by the message. If the message concerns a module generated by Qsys, you need to ensure the .qip file has been imported into your Quartus project. Otherwise, check that you have imported the (System)Verilog files containing the module definition. You can add files to a Quartus project by going Project | Add/Remove Files in Project.
Board LEDs display arbitrary pattern
Check you have imported the pin assignments for the board. If not, you will afterwards need to re-compile your Quartus project and re-program the board. Note that, in case of doubt, re-importing the assignments is fine.
Quartus fails to start
If the error concerns licence servers, call a demonstrator (during the labs) or email Simon Moore (simon dot moore at cl dot cam dot ac dot uk). The issue may also be machine specific - try another machine.
FPGA activity corresponds to a previous design
A new .sof file has been produced, whilst the programmer is still using the old version. Double-click on the filename in the programming window to modify the path.
Quartus fitting failed
Check the compilation warnings for implicit nets or dangling wires; the connections in your design may be incomplete or incorrect.

Qsys

Qsys component library empty
Restart Qsys.

Eclipse (NIOS II)

Fails to create a new project and BSP
When creating a new project and BSP you will see linker errors if the sdram is not connected to the NIOS processor in Qsys since the generator script has no place to put your code. Check your Qsys project that both the data master and the instruction master bus interfaces on your NIOS are connected to the SDRAM.
...failed elf download...
In your Quartus root module, check the reset input to the instance of your Qsys component. Since the button signals are active low, it may be your system is continually being reset.
Also check that the PLL is configured correctly with an input clock of 50MHz, the main system clock at 100MHz with no phase shift and the SDRAM clock at 100Mhz with a -3ns (not -3deg or -3ps) phase shift.
No output on NIOS JTAG console (i.e. nothing from printf)
First check that you did include a JTAG UART in your Qsys design, that it is connected up and that the base address as seen in Qsys matches the base address in system.h
We have found that if your main system PLL has been configured for a 100MHz input clock (rather than 50MHz as it should be) and the output clocks are also at 100MHz (i.e. multiply by 1 and divide by 1) then the resulting clock will actually be 50MHz. This appears to allow code (your elf file) to download correctly but no output will be produced.
Another possible cause (which is rarer) is that the board support package (BSP) has had its default outputs for stdout, stdin and stderr changed so that they no longer direct input and output to the NIOS JTAG console. The BSP will need to be edited to fix this. You may need to ask for help to do this.
Eclipse crashes on run
You can help to prevent this by stopping any previous NIOS II console before re-launching. This can be done by clicking the NIOS II Console tab and then the red stop button to terminate and remove the launch.
Eclipse project creation failure
Irrespective of failure, Eclipse will probably generate the project folders, preventing you from recreating the project under the same name. Delete them. In Qsys, check the Avalon Memory Mapped Master, nios2_qsys_0.instruction_master is connected to the Avalon Memory Mapped Slave, sdram_0.s1. Also check the base address of sdram_0.s1 is zero. Finally, try recreating the project.
...console model invalid...
Your BSP Project is (probably) out-of-sync with respect to the Qsys system. Right click on the BSP project and go NIOS II | Generate BSP. Then go Project | Clean... and click OK. Now try relaunching. Also try restarting Eclipse.
...make Error 1
Check for additional errors and advice. If no further information is given, it is possible the project files are corrupted; the project (and BSP) will need to be recreated; either use a different name or delete the project folders from the file system after moving any custom code to a safe location.
...error while discovering JTAG connections...
Restart Eclipse. Also see the notes on Programmer Failure in the Quartus section.