EPCS booting problem

Well, I have figured out a workaround to boot from EPCS while waiting for Altera to come out with a fix for 9.1. But this workaround is very manual.

First, generate two sets of compressed POF file from Convert Programming Files utility. One with "Disable AS/AP mode CONF_DONE pin error check" option checked, and another one unchecked. Let's named them working.pof for the pof file with "Disable AS/AP mode CONF_DONE pin error check" option checked and not_working.pof for the other one.

Convert both pof files to RPD files using Convert Programming Files utility tool. Use same file names, which are working.rpd and not_working.rpd. Use binary comparator tool to compare both files. You can notice that there are only 3 bits difference for the first 3 bytes.

Now, you can use the NIOS II flash programmer to program the SOF file and ELF file into the EPCS like usual. After finish programming, bear in mind that at the very top of your EPCS now is actually similar like not_working.rpd. You just have figure out a way to change it to working.rpd. That's a lot of way to do this, such as using alt_write_flash() in your firmware code. My applications already allow me to write and read from the EPCS freely.

Hope this helps! :)