User guide

Troubleshooting
This topic contains troubleshooting tips for the Nios II IDE.
Q: Where did my existing projects go?
A: When the Nios II IDE upgrades to a newer version of Eclipse and CDT, the IDE uses a new,
fresh location to store projects. Your older projects do not display in the Nios II C/C++
Projects view, but they are still available. To access your projects either use the workspace
launcher to switch to an existing workspace, or import your projects
into the new workspace.
In either case, old run/debug configurations are not available and you must recreate them to
launch your projects properly. To create a new run/debug configuration, right-click your
project in the Nios II C/C++ Projects view, point to Run As or Debug As, and then click Nios
II Hardware.
Q: Where did the links to the shared device drivers and other resources go?
A: As of Nios II IDE version 7.2, the redundant links to device drivers and other resources
formerly referenced from within each separate system library project are now consolidated
into one altera.components project, available in the Nios II C/C++ Projects view after
creating or building a project that references the shared source code.
Q: Why does my C/C++ perspective have unfamiliar menu items and where did the
familiar Nios II items go?
A: Starting with version 6.1, the Nios II IDE provides a separate Nios II C/C++ perspective
tailored for Nios II software development. The Eclipse C/C++ Development Toolkit (CDT)
C/C++ perspective contains features of interest to the general Eclipse development
community and lacks features specific to Nios II software development.
Q: How do I get my C/C++ and Debug perspectives to display correctly after
upgrading to the latest version?
A: Switch to the affected perspective, and then click Reset Perspective on the Window
menu.
Q: Sometimes I get the message "An error has occurred. See error log for more
details." Where is this error log located?
A: The error log is located in your workspace directory in the .metadata subdirectory in the
.log file. You can view the error log from the Nios II IDE. Click
About Nios II IDE on the
Help menu, then click Configuration Details, then click View Error Log.
Q: Why do I get the message "Error creating project. Reason: Invalid project
description" in the New Project wizard when I specify a custom project location and
click Finish?
A: Nios II IDE project directories can contain only one project, and cannot be nested inside
other project directories. For example, if you have project_1 in directory
/software/project_1, then you cannot create a project_2 in directory
/software/project_1/project_2. If you want to specify a particular directory, but a project
already exists there, you must first delete the old project from the IDE workspace. Right-click
the old project in the Nios II C/C++ Projects view, and then click Delete.
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