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Can't finish creating NiosII project

Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
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Hi Everyone. 

 

I would be grateful if someone could help me with this one: 

 

I have followed this video tutorial step by step: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1a_cd6fbroa 

I have made the same exact connections as seen in 4:43. But when I import the .sopcinfo file as in 10:02 I get a message stating that the ".sopcinfo does not contain any cpu". 

Also tried creating one of my own in a few different ways but I always end up stuck at the same point. No idea why. 

Checked inside the .sopcinfo and the entry for the processor module is there. 

 

I am sure that this may be some small default missing, which the guy on the video has set already and forgot to talk about. 

Or maybe it can be some file access problem? 

 

I have Quartus installed on the default C:\Altera location, and my projects are created under the "My Documents" folder. Have tried other folders for the project with no success. 

O.S. is Windows 8.1 64 bits. 

 

Any help is greatly appreciated. 

 

Thanks, 

Marcelo.
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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
1,350 Views

I think your folder paths are the issue. Altera softwares (and most other FPGA softwares) have problems dealing with folder names with SPACES. So since your files are under the "My Documents" folder, you are probably getting issues. 

 

I would make sure that your project folders do not have any spaces. Retry the project in something like C:\Altera_Projects\Nios_Tutorial... As you can see the path name contains no spaces.
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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
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Hi Krasner, 

 

Thanks for the reply. 

I have tried re-creating all the steps, this time under c:\altera\projects\hello. I made sure to use no spaces on anything, or even uppercase, still the same exact results. 

So far I have no idea why the Eclipse won't detect the presence of the CPU. 

I see other people on this forum also had the same or similar issue, but strangely no one of the threads seems to have come to a conclusion. 

 

I am open to any other ideas. 

 

Thanks a lot, 

Marcelo.
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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
1,350 Views

hmm that's odd. Can you archive your project and attach it here?

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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
1,350 Views

Hi Krasner, 

 

Thanks a lot. 

 

Here it is. 

At this point the next step would be to start the Eclipse and create the project from template (as seen around 10:02 of the how-to video). 

 

Cheers, 

Marcelo.
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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
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Well, it works for me. 

 

I did File > New > Nios II Application and BSP from Template 

 

Then in the pop up screen in the selection for SOPC Information File Name, I selected device.sopcinfo - the message box showed "C:\Users\krasner\hello\device.sopcinfo

No spaces in the whole path name.  

 

Then it took a few seconds to process, but it found nios2_qsys_0 as the cpu without issue. Then I was able to generate the hello_world template with no problem. 

 

I am using Quartus 13.1, you use 13.0. That may be the cause of your problems (not sure how likely that is.....) 

 

I would suggest trying to compile your quartus project before you start the Nios EDS. If you can't compile your design in quartus, then you may be having bigger problems with your installation. Also you might want to switch to version 13.1 which I find to be very stable. 

 

Good luck. I'm not sure what else to suggest.
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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
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Hi Krasner, 

 

I am able to compile the project with no flaws, which I did before trying to create the Eclipse project, and both Quartus and this project are on folders with no space on the file names. 

Not sure if I can switch to any version of Quartus greater than 13.0sp1, because my boards (DE1, DE2 and DE2-70) all use the CycloneII chip, which is not supported. 

Unless there's a way to add that support manually to 13.1. 

I will try removing Quartus completely and re-installing it, maybe it helps. 

Not sure at this point what the issue may be. 

[edit] Do you think this may be related to the operating system? not running something as "administrator"?  

 

Thanks a lot for the help. Any other ideas are most welcome. 

 

Cheers, 

Marcelo.
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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
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OK. Here is my last idea: 

 

Read the following thread: http://www.alterawiki.com/wiki/new_qsys_issues#nios_bsp_and_projects_fail_to_make_on_win7 

 

Here is the relevant excerpt: 

 

"Nios BSP and Projects fail to make on Win7 

 

Issue: NIOS make files fail to run correctly under Windows 7 via Eclipse or command line. This affects the generation of BSP's and compilation of regular projects. The problem seems to be with file/directory  

permissions under the cygwin environment. 

 

Fix: Run Eclipse or the command prompt as administrator. (Right click to get context menu, select "Run as administrator".)" 

 

 

 

Hope this helps. Good luck.
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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
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Update: 

 

Removed Quartus II (and Java, just in case) completely. 

Re-installed Quartus II (web edition) onto c:\altera (eliminated 13.0sp1 from the installation path to simplify). 

Did not re-install Java (is it required for Eclipse?) 

Re-created the project from the beginning, to the point where the device is created and I am able to successfully compile the project. 

Tried to create the BSP from template and got the same exact result, same exact message: .socpinfo file does not contain any cpu 

 

Other projects (not nios based) build and function properly. 

 

At this point I am not sure what else I can do to try to fix this. 

 

Cheers, 

Marcelo.
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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
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I have tried also uninstalling 13.0sp1 completely and installing 12.1sp1, same result. 

So I guess it is something related to my operating system, not the Quartus itself. 

 

I have tried installing on a Windows 7 VM and it seems to have worked. 

 

Open to ideas. 

 

Thanks a lot, 

Marcelo.
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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
1,350 Views

After installing the patch described here: 

[1] http://help.ece.ubc.ca/altera 

[2] ftp://ftp.altera.com/up/pub/cygwin_p...gwin_patch.zip 

and re-creating the project from scratch, all seems to be working.
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