Nios II Flash Programmer vagueness

Altera_Forum · ‎03-01-2005

I have a Nios II project I'm trying to download using the flash programmer, and it gives me this vague error message: "There is a problem with the target board. Check the target board selection in SOPC Builder for this system." at the top of the window, and it grays out the Program Flash button. The Flash Programmer setup for burning a program to the demo board works fine.

I've checked both my main project and the programmer project that mk_target_board created; no problems are reported by SOPC Builder, and the target board is set properly in the main project.

The flash programmer actually worked once, after I regenerated both SOPC instances and rebuilt both projects. Then, next time I built my main project, it gave me that error again. I did another full regenerate/rebuild, and it didn't work.

My project is a Cyclone 1C3 connected to an EPCS1. I have a 2K on-chip ROM, and 512 bytes on-chip RAM. There is no bootloader; the Nios II IDE project generates ROM.hex and RAM.hex initialization files that are then used by the Quartus II compiler to initialize these memories. Therefore, I have no .elf file to program; I just have the .sof file to program to the EPCS through the JTAG bus.

Flash Programmer window settings in the Main tab are as follows:[list][*]Target board shows the correct target board. Unchangeable; no idea where it gets this from.

[*]"Program software project into flash memory" is unchecked.

[*]"Target Hardware" section is set to the correct path to my system PTF file, and it shows the correct CPU, however, but it's grayed out, so I can't change it.

[*]"Program FPGA configuration data into hardware-image region of flash memory" is checked.

[*]"FPGA Configuration (SOF):" is set to my main project's SOF file.

[*]"Hardware image" is set to the hardware image location (there's only one) I set up in the programmer's SOPC builder file. Offset from start of the EPCS1 is 0.[/list]In the "Target Connection" tab, the USB Blaster (rev B ) is selected correctly and shows the target 1C3 device.

Any help, including directions on how to try this from the command line, is appreciated.

Altera_Forum · ‎03-02-2005

Mike DeSimone,

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div>

--- Quote Start ---

"There is a problem with the target board. Check the target board selection in SOPC Builder for this system."[/b]

--- Quote End ---

Try the following:

- Open NIOS IDE

- Open Quartus

- Open SOPC Builder

- Close SOPC Builder

- Run Flash Programmer

You can use 'Flash Programmer' now only once. Everytime you restart it, SOPC-builder must be reopened (and 'javaw.exe' started). If your system then slows down:

- Close IDE

- kill process: javaw.exe

- Restart IDE

- Open NIOS IDE

........

its that easy ... http://forum.niosforum.com/work2/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/dry.gif

Mike

Altera_Forum · ‎03-02-2005

I use NIOS 1.1 and have the same problem, even more if it finds the sof file

it generates a wrong flash programmer script.

Therefore I use the nios sdk shell (bash) and a own written script file for

the flash programmer. There you can tell the flash programmer the correct path

to your board.file. This works fine.

Altera_Forum · ‎03-02-2005

--- Quote Start ---

originally posted by mir@Mar 2 2005, 02:50 AM

try the following:

(...omitted...)

its that easy ... http://forum.niosforum.com/work2/style_emoticons/<#emo_dir#>/dry.gif

--- Quote End ---

Bagawk. That worked. Thanks!

And, yeah, it's annoying when the tools don't talk to each other properly. I'm still trying to figure out how to get the IDE and eCos to work together.