Quartus programmer start failed

[ocraM]

Hi, I'm new to FPGA and I'm using a MAX10 starter kit and Quartus Prime Lite V23.1 to learn.

The kit is identical to this one, with a MAX10 10M08DAF256C8GES FPGA, a digital display and a JTAG-USB connector.

Following this project I downloaded the source code, compiled it without errors, then clicked on "Programmer". The window already opened with a hardware detected, which I assume was auto-detected from my USB port that is connected to the FPGA board.

I then click on "Start" and nothing happens. The progress bar is stuck on "Failed".

 pringles chip for scale.

I have no idea how to debug this. Is there any error log message somewhere? Am I forgetting to do something in the process?

Thanks for any help.

[ocraM]

I found more information on the quartus main window system log:

"

209053 Unexpected error in JTAG server -- error code 89

209012 Operation failed

"

Looking on the web, it seems Quartus should have started a jtag server in my system, maybe "jtagd".
I could not find anything like that on

systemctl list-units

 results.

Shouldn't that have been installed with quartus?

[FvM · Accepted solution]

Hi,
I stumbled upon "USB-Blaster variant" device name which shouldn't occur for regular USB-Blaster. Could be a Linux specific problem as discussed here https://furrah.github.io/usb-blaster-linux-quartus2-virtual-machine/

Regarding jtagd question, Quartus instally a jtagd running under systemctrl. If it's stopped, Quartus programmer and other tools using jtagd are starting there own local jtagd instance.

[ocraM]

Hi, thanks for the help!

I managed to make it work... I had already tried the /etc/udev/rules.d suggestion before and it didn't work alone, but after stumbling upon this (which is pretty similar to what you suggested) I uninstalled the program as I had done several times before, but this time downloaded a new installer from "Multiple download" instead of from "Installer (new!)" in the download page. I also rebooted my computer after installation (not sure if needed).

Now it works. I suspect the usbblaster driver is not installed via the installer but is via the "setup.sh" script that comes with the tar file. I am not sure, though, and I didn't find anything with "sudo lsmod | grep usbblaster".

I also dont find anything with "jtag" in "systemctl list-units" but I do find a process spawned by executable jtagd which seems to be from systemd:

marco@hivemind:~$ ps aux | grep jtagd
marco       4917  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        Z    17:19   0:00 [jtagd] <defunct>
marco       4929  0.0  0.0  24452  3400 ?        S    17:19   0:00 jtagd --user-start --config /home/marco/.jtagd.conf
marco       6641  0.0  0.0  20744  2816 pts/1    S+   17:35   0:00 grep --color=auto jtagd
marco@hivemind:~$ ps -o ppid= 4929
   2112
marco@hivemind:~$ ps aux | grep 2112
marco       2112  0.0  0.0  18016 10496 ?        Ss   17:17   0:00 /lib/systemd/systemd --user
marco       6645  0.0  0.0  20744  2816 pts/1    S+   17:35   0:00 grep --color=auto 2112