Alchitry Labs not playing nicely with Vivado

Hello! Loving my AU, but I’ve been having some issues. When I first tried using Alchitry Labs, it wouldn’t get past “Starting Vivado…”
I decided to just learn verilog, and use plain ol Vivado with the loader, which works fine. However, now that I find myself wanting to do more with complex AU features, like the IO module 7-segs and RAM. I dont want to design my own memory controller, and verilog has been pretty confusing - two problems I can solve via Alchitry Labs with lucid. I ported the I/O files into Vivado from Labs for the buttons/DIP row/LED row, which has been enough for my projects until now. I did some investigation through task manager, and it seems that Labs will spawn a Vivado process, which will start eating up one of my processor threads, until after a few minutes, then it will disappear. Upon cancelling the build, Labs reports there is no .bin file found in the destination directory - ‘\working\dir.runs\impl_1\au_top_0.bin) could not be found! The build probably failed.’ I am using Labs 1.2.6, and Vivado 2020.2. I have validated my Vivado files through help → add design tools or devices. I have been troubleshooting with the led to button sample project. Running Windows 10.

Any help would be appreciated.

P.S. I found alchity2.com, and I gotta complement the UI design, except for the miniscule drop-down menus.

Had a similar problem but mine was related to the fact I am running Windows 7 Pro and I fixed it by uninstalling the latest copy of Vivado and going back to the last copy that supported Windows 7 namely Vivado 2019.2 after 2 installs of Vivado 2 hours per install and finally another 2 hours on the Vivado 2019.2.

Alchitry Labs loves it and works beautifully so you can write in Verilog or Lucid I even left a ISE copy of Vivado by installing in a new directory so I can still program the Mojo via Vivado ISE.

The latest version of Vivado will install without a warning that it won’t work on Windows 7 and gives the same error as Tyrving got.

I tried the following hacks as recommended on the Vivado forums and are listed here as it may fix a Windows 10 problem.

ENVIRONMENTAL VARIABLES (WINDOWS SYSTEM VARIABLES) - Windows Control Panel - System - Advanced system settings (from Menu)
DEFAULT
Variable name: NO_XILINX_DATA_LICENSE
Variable value: HIDDEN
MODIFY IT
Variable name: NO_XILINX_DATA_LICENSE
Variable value: C:.Xilinx\Xilinx.lic <-PLACE YOUR LICENCE PATH HERE Available from License Manager


ERROR MESSAGE
couldn’t load library “librdi_tcltasks.dll”

Location E:\Xilinx2\Vivado\2020.2\lib\win64.o

%SystemRoot%\system32\cmd.exe /k E:\Xilinx2\Vivado\2020.2\bin\vivado.bat -mode tcl

SOLUTION
Try uninstalling Microsoft redistributable libraries from programs & features and re-installing them.

This error has been seen when the Microsoft redistributable libraries have not been properly installed on the Windows machine.

Re-running the vcredist executables should resolve this issue.

Run both the Visual C++ redistribution executables located at:
32 Bit Installations
\tps\win32\vcredist_x86.exe (e.g., C:\Xilinx\Vivado\2013.2\tps\win32\vcredist_x86.exe)
64 Bit Installations
\tps\win64\vcredist_x64.exe (e.g., C:\Xilinx\Vivado\2013.2\tps\win64\vcredist_x64.exe)

Reboot the operating system.

Just love programming down to the copper with FPGA’s!

Do you have anything unique about your install? I have 1.2.6 and 2020.2 working on Windows 10. Everything is in the default paths on the C drive. I’ve heard of people having issues if it isn’t the C drive.

My Vivado install is in C:\Xilinx\Vivado\2020.2, Labs is in C:\Program Files\Alchitry\Alchitry Labs, installed via the Windows .msi installer. I am happy to provide any other information. School gets out soon, and I will try running all this on a Windows VM to see if it is broken by default. Any way to view the logs of Alchitry Labs for some more verbose error messages?

I’m still at a loss for this. I thought it might have been because you had 2020.3 installed which doesn’t support the Artix 7 family (Au/Au+ fpgas) but you said you have 2020.2.

Yesterday I did a fresh install of Windows 10, Vivado 2020.2, Alchitry Labs, and Java SE 16 (Oracle’s JRE) and had no problems.

Do you have a “work” folder in your Alchitry project after trying to build? Look in there for any logs. There should be a folder “work/vivado/PROJECT_NAME” (where PROJECT_NAME is your project’s name) that has Vivado’s working files.

I was using Java 8 - updating to 16 has resolved the issue entirely. I tried running 1.2.7 prior to java 16, and this did not work either, so I am sure the java version is what resolved the issue, not the Labs update. Thank you for your help! I don’t see any mention of java versions on the Vivado install page - I think telling people to check their java version and update if needed would reduce the prevalence of this issue.

For documentation purposes - The work folder was present, and (upon cross-reference with a successful build) all subfolders were produced, except for the .bin file. The log file just included the starting Vivado, aborted by user, and cannot find .bin file messages.

Mark

Holy crap, THANK YOU!!! Can’t believe it was something so simple. I was trying everything.