1.8" TFT bitmap display issues reading from micro sd card

Hello, I am trying to get this code to work for a DIY photo frame. the code uploads fine and initializes the sd card but wont read the test images.

The code is copied directly from "Arduino DIY Photo Frame using ST7735 1.8" TFT Display - Electronics-Lab.com"
The images have been run through "paint.net" to convert to 160 pixel wide bmp images to match the display (i've tried various color modes)
I changed the names of the images to suit some I had handy, but everything else seems ok.

The serial shows the sd card initialized, then can't find the images. The card is formatted fat16 and partitioned down to under 4 gb as per a spec I saw somewhere that said 2 is best, but 4 is fine.
the images are in the main directory without any folder trees.
-> i think it is this loop:
// Open requested file on SD card

  • if ((bmpFile = SD.open(filename)) == NULL) {*
  • Serial.print("File not found");*
  • return;*
  • }*

i didn't take any pictures of the looped serial output because i'm not sure it says anything worthwhile. the test is all in the code.

#include <Adafruit_GFX.h> // Core graphics library
#include <Adafruit_ST7735.h> // Hardware-specific library
#include <SPI.h>
#include <SD.h>

#define TFT_CS 10 // Chip select line for TFT display
#define TFT_RST 8 // Reset line for TFT (or see below...)
#define TFT_DC 9 // Data/command line for TFT
#define SD_CS 4 // Chip select line for SD card

Adafruit_ST7735 tft = Adafruit_ST7735(TFT_CS, TFT_DC, TFT_RST);

void setup(void) {
Serial.begin(9600);

tft.initR(INITR_BLACKTAB);

Serial.print("Initializing SD card...");
if (!SD.begin(SD_CS)) {
Serial.println("failed!");
return;
}
Serial.println("OK!");

tft.setRotation(1); // Landscape

}

void loop() {

// bmpDraw("logo.bmp", 0, 0);
// delay(3000);
bmpDraw("blackmage",0,0);
delay(5000);
bmpDraw("dndnecromancer18.bmp",0,0);
delay(5000);
bmpDraw("snowmountain.bmp",0,0);
delay(5000);
bmpDraw("captainplanet.bmp",0,0);
delay(5000);
bmpDraw("dndnecromancer.bmp",0,0);
delay(5000);
}

#define BUFFPIXEL 20

void bmpDraw(char *filename, uint8_t x, uint8_t y) {

File bmpFile;
int bmpWidth, bmpHeight; // W+H in pixels
uint8_t bmpDepth; // Bit depth (currently must be 24)
uint32_t bmpImageoffset; // Start of image data in file
uint32_t rowSize; // Not always = bmpWidth; may have padding
uint8_t sdbuffer[3*BUFFPIXEL]; // pixel buffer (R+G+B per pixel)
uint8_t buffidx = sizeof(sdbuffer); // Current position in sdbuffer
boolean goodBmp = false; // Set to true on valid header parse
boolean flip = true; // BMP is stored bottom-to-top
int w, h, row, col;
uint8_t r, g, b;
uint32_t pos = 0, startTime = millis();

if((x >= tft.width()) || (y >= tft.height())) return;

Serial.println();
Serial.print("Loading image '");
Serial.print(filename);
Serial.println(''');

// Open requested file on SD card
if ((bmpFile = SD.open(filename)) == NULL) {
Serial.print("File not found");
return;
}

// Parse BMP header
if(read16(bmpFile) == 0x4D42) { // BMP signature
Serial.print("File size: "); Serial.println(read32(bmpFile));
(void)read32(bmpFile); // Read & ignore creator bytes
bmpImageoffset = read32(bmpFile); // Start of image data
Serial.print("Image Offset: "); Serial.println(bmpImageoffset, DEC);
// Read DIB header
Serial.print("Header size: "); Serial.println(read32(bmpFile));
bmpWidth = read32(bmpFile);
bmpHeight = read32(bmpFile);
if(read16(bmpFile) == 1) { // # planes -- must be '1'
bmpDepth = read16(bmpFile); // bits per pixel
Serial.print("Bit Depth: "); Serial.println(bmpDepth);
if((bmpDepth == 24) && (read32(bmpFile) == 0)) { // 0 = uncompressed

goodBmp = true; // Supported BMP format -- proceed!
Serial.print("Image size: ");
Serial.print(bmpWidth);
Serial.print('x');
Serial.println(bmpHeight);

// BMP rows are padded (if needed) to 4-byte boundary
rowSize = (bmpWidth * 3 + 3) & ~3;

// If bmpHeight is negative, image is in top-down order.
// This is not canon but has been observed in the wild.
if(bmpHeight < 0) {
bmpHeight = -bmpHeight;
flip = false;
}

// Crop area to be loaded
w = bmpWidth;
h = bmpHeight;
if((x+w-1) >= tft.width()) w = tft.width() - x;
if((y+h-1) >= tft.height()) h = tft.height() - y;

// Set TFT address window to clipped image bounds
tft.setAddrWindow(x, y, x+w-1, y+h-1);

for (row=0; row<h; row++) { // For each scanline...

// Seek to start of scan line. It might seem labor-
// intensive to be doing this on every line, but this
// method covers a lot of gritty details like cropping
// and scanline padding. Also, the seek only takes
// place if the file position actually needs to change
// (avoids a lot of cluster math in SD library).
if(flip) // Bitmap is stored bottom-to-top order (normal BMP)
pos = bmpImageoffset + (bmpHeight - 1 - row) * rowSize;
else // Bitmap is stored top-to-bottom
pos = bmpImageoffset + row * rowSize;
if(bmpFile.position() != pos) { // Need seek?
bmpFile.seek(pos);
buffidx = sizeof(sdbuffer); // Force buffer reload
}

for (col=0; col<w; col++) { // For each pixel...
// Time to read more pixel data?
if (buffidx >= sizeof(sdbuffer)) { // Indeed
bmpFile.read(sdbuffer, sizeof(sdbuffer));
buffidx = 0; // Set index to beginning
}

// Convert pixel from BMP to TFT format, push to display
b = sdbuffer[buffidx++];
g = sdbuffer[buffidx++];
r = sdbuffer[buffidx++];
tft.pushColor(tft.color565(r,g,b));
} // end pixel
} // end scanline
Serial.print("Loaded in ");
Serial.print(millis() - startTime);
Serial.println(" ms");
} // end goodBmp
}
}

bmpFile.close();
if(!goodBmp) Serial.println("BMP format not recognized.");
}

// These read 16- and 32-bit types from the SD card file.
// BMP data is stored little-endian, Arduino is little-endian too.
// May need to reverse subscript order if porting elsewhere.

uint16_t read16(File f) {
uint16_t result;
((uint8_t *)&result)[0] = f.read(); // LSB
((uint8_t *)&result)[1] = f.read(); // MSB
return result;
}

uint32_t read32(File f) {
uint32_t result;
((uint8_t *)&result)[0] = f.read(); // LSB
((uint8_t *)&result)[1] = f.read();
((uint8_t *)&result)[2] = f.read();
((uint8_t *)&result)[3] = f.read(); // MSB
return result;
}

the next step in this is to figure out if the TFT is actually working, but i need to find the images before I can do that (without finding a workable code to draw shapes on it.)

Any input you all can offer would be appreciated!

Bump...

Still no luck trying to figure out why the code isn't working... about to give up.