arty Error, Arty board not recognised

[8Strings82]

Hello Everybody, 

I am new to the forum, and I am about to ask a question about a problem with my new Arty development kit.

I have installed Vivado succesfully. When I connect the board for the first time, after installing the whole software, windows is installing drivers for the board, but fails in retrieving one of them (USB serial driver (COM1)). As a result, when I start Vivado and I try to open the target I get the following error:

ERROR: [Labtoolstcl 44-26] No hardware targets exist on the server [localhost]
Check to make sure the cable targets connected to this machine are properly connected
and powered up, then use the disconnect_hw_server and connect_hw_server commands
to re-register the hardware targets.

I have looked around for a solution but didn't find anything. Does somebody already had this error? How can I solve it?

I have already tried to uninstall Vivado, restart the PC and install it again, but didn't work. I also tried to install the cable drivers manually from consolle, but I am stuck witht the problem.

 

Thanks in advance for your help and time.

Giovanni.

[Alex]

You can try to manually install the FTDI driver The Arty includes an FTDI FT2232HQ USB-UART bridge (attached to connector J10) that allows you use PC applications to communicate with the board using standard Windows COM port commands. Free USB-COM port drivers, available from www.ftdichip.com under the “Virtual Com Port” or VCP heading

[8Strings82]

Hi, thanks for your advice.

I have tried to install them manually as you suggested, but I still get the same error.

[8Strings82]

Hi, I have solved the problem, I have connected the device to the USB behind my PC instead of connecting it to the front panel. 

Now I get a new warning:

 

WARNING: [Labtools 27-3123] The debug hub core was not detected at User Scan Chain 1 or 3.
Resolution: 
1. Make sure the clock connected to the debug hub (dbg_hub) core is a free running clock and is active OR
2. Manually launch hw_server with -e "set xsdb-user-bscan <C_USER_SCAN_CHAIN scan_chain_number>" to detect the debug hub at User Scan Chain of 2 or 4. To determine the user scan chain setting, open the implemented design and use: get_property C_USER_SCAN_CHAIN [get_debug_cores dbg_hub].

 

Any idea?

[JColvin]

Hi 8Strings82,

I have asked some of our applications engineers about this; they'll get back to you here on the forum.

Thanks,
JColvin

[artvvb]

Hi 8Strings82,

I've seen this warning before and have successfully compiled with no issues. There are options in Vivado to create debugging cores, meaning the ability to create breakpoints and view specific signals while the FPGA is running. Presumably Vivado expects you to use one of these cores, but in my experience, this has never generated an error or a critical warning that stopped me from generating a bitstream and programming it onto my board. I'm certainly curious about attempting to use this feature, specifically to see how it compares to Simulation. If you're interested in using the debuggers, then there's some interesting reading on Xilinx's site, http://www.xilinx.com/support/documentation/sw_manuals/xilinx2015_4/ug936-vivado-tutorial-programming-debugging.pdf, page 28, has a lab to add a debugger to a project. Again though, this isn't required to create a project, and one of my coworkers will post shortly with a little more in-depth explanation.

Thanks,

Arthur

[AndrewHolzer]

Hello 8Strings82,

I've seen that warning before and have always ignored it without issue, but your post piqued my interest in the warning. I think I understand why the Labtools throws the warning, and it has to do with the demo project that is loaded into the Arty. There is a log entry just before the warning that says

INFO: [Labtools 27-1434] Device xc7a35t (JTAG device index = 0) is programmed with a design that has no supported debug core(s) in it.

The demo project loaded into the Arty doesn't have any sort of debug core implemented in the project. When you connect your device in the Hardware Manager, the tools look to see if there is a debug core in the design. Because there are none, you see the INFO entry and then the warning. It isn't anything to worry about at all. The link that artvvb provides is a good document for getting into debugging if you are at all interested in it.

Andrew