AM6442: debugger slow performance

HS FAE Germany

Part Number: AM6442

Hello,

customer mentioned that the communication with the board/evm with the debugger is very slow. He observed that when pressing F5 in C code (step by step debugging), he experience a minimum time of about 3s to step to a next executable C statement. There is one specific place where pressing F5 takes almost 3min!

This happens in the initialization code where he expect it to jump to the following code after executing the switch statement:

As a reference, stepping in assembly (Ctrl-Shift-F5 takes about 1-2 sec). May be the main difference between this switch case and some other pieces of code is a fair amount of assembly code (to determine the specific case statement to jump to).

It seems that the debugger is stopping after every instruction in assembly and tries to detect if the place it stopped in corresponds to a different C statement than the one it is in at the moment. This would explain the delay.

Regards, Holger

over 2 years ago

0 Frank Livingston over 2 years ago

TI__Mastermind 28788 points

Hi Holger,

Are you using the on-board XDS110 JTAG?

What are your emulator settings? This is a screen capture of mine:

/resized-image/__size/320x240/__key/communityserver-discussions-components-files/791/xds110_5F00_settings.PNG

Which SDK version are you using?

Your screen captures seem to show you're stepping through one of these examples:

#1: enet_layer2_icssg

https://software-dl.ti.com/mcu-plus-sdk/esd/AM64X/08_01_00_36/exports/docs/api_guide_am64x/EXAMPLES_ENET_LAYER2_ICSSG.html
<SDK>/examples/networking/enet_layer2_icssg/am64x-evm/r5fss0-0_freertos/ti-arm-clang/example.projectspec

#2: enet_vlan_icssg

https://software-dl.ti.com/mcu-plus-sdk/esd/AM64X/08_01_00_36/exports/docs/api_guide_am64x/EXAMPLES_ENET_VLAN_ICSSG.html
<SDK>/examples/networking/enet_vlan_icssg/am64x-evm/r5fss0-0_freertos/ti-arm-clang/example.projectspec

Is this the case? If so, which example?

Are you using the debug or release build configuration?

I experimented with the enet_layer2_icssg example. I noticed a long CCS debugger response time when stepping through the debug build of the example, but not when stepping through the release version.

Regards,
Frank

0 HS FAE Germany over 2 years ago in reply to Frank Livingston

TI__Mastermind 30485 points

Hello Frank,

he use the on-board XDS110 JTAG and didn’t change the configuration:

He use enet_layer2_icssg example in debug configuration.
For debugging/getting familiar with the code, debug configuration is preferred because variables are not optimized out and you can see the state of execution in a user friendly form in the debugger.

Regards, Holger

0 Frank Livingston over 2 years ago in reply to HS FAE Germany

TI__Mastermind 28788 points

Hi Holger,

Ok, it appears the JTAG settings are correct.

HS FAE Germany said:
For debugging/getting familiar with the code, debug configuration is preferred

Understood, this makes sense.

What is the customer expectation? Root causing the issue? A hardware or software workaround?

Regards,
Frank

0 HS FAE Germany over 2 years ago in reply to Frank Livingston

TI__Mastermind 30485 points

Hello Frank,

> What is the customer expectation? Root causing the issue? A hardware or software workaround?
this is not a show stopper but very annoying. So any idea for improvement would help here.

Regards, Holger

0 Frank Livingston over 2 years ago in reply to HS FAE Germany

TI__Mastermind 28788 points

Hi Holger,

Can the customer consider using an external JTAG connection?

I'm looping in a colleague with more hardware expertise to see anything can be done to speed up the JTAG connection.

Regards,
Frank

0 HS FAE Germany over 2 years ago in reply to Frank Livingston

TI__Mastermind 30485 points

Hello Frank,

they don’t have an emulator yet. Do you know if external XDS110 brings speed improvments?

Regards, Holger

0 Andrei Aldea over 2 years ago in reply to HS FAE Germany

TI__Expert 3270 points

Hi Holger,

As a debug step using any other external JTAG emulator certainly wouldn't hurt. I would be very surprised if the behavior of a XDS110 would be any different from the onboard. If it is any different, please ping me again. I'm re-assigning to Frank as this seems to be a CCS issue.

Best,

Andrei

0 Frank Livingston over 2 years ago in reply to HS FAE Germany

TI__Mastermind 28788 points

Hi Holger,

My original idea was to use another type of JTAG emulator like the XDS560v2 for the external emulator. However, I discussed this further with a colleague on the hardware apps team. He pointed out assembly stepping works fine, but C stepping doesn't. This seems to indicate the delay isn't being caused by the hardware, but has something to do with how CCS determines how to step during debug mode. Hence, I'm reassigning to experts on the CCS team.

Regards,
Frank

0 Ki over 2 years ago

TI__Guru**** 420630 points

Hello Holger,

What exact CCS version that the customer using? And what is the host OS (looks like Windows - which version?)?

Thanks

0 HS FAE Germany over 2 years ago in reply to Ki

TI__Mastermind 30485 points

he is running Windows 7 and CCS11.1.0.00011

0 Ki over 2 years ago in reply to HS FAE Germany

TI__Guru**** 420630 points

Can the customer enable debug server logging, reproduce the issue (the 3+ second source step), zip up the generated log and attach it to this thread?

https://software-dl.ti.com/ccs/esd/documents/ccs_diagnostic-logs.html#debug-server-logs

Thanks

0 HS FAE Germany over 2 years ago in reply to Ki

TI__Mastermind 30485 points

Hi Ki,
attached you find the log files.ds.zip

Regards, Holger

0 Ki over 2 years ago in reply to HS FAE Germany

TI__Guru**** 420630 points

Thanks Holger. I have sent the logs to engineering for analysis. I will pass on any updates as I get them.

0 Ki over 2 years ago

TI__Guru**** 420630 points

HS FAE Germany said:
It seems that the debugger is stopping after every instruction in assembly

Yes this is a correct. The debugger indeeds issues a series of assembly steps "under the hood" when source stepping, instead of setting a breakpoint and running to it. The engineers were able to confirm (via looking at the log) that much of the delay was due to the assembly stepping.

That said, they also commented that there seemed to be "extra" activity in the logs that warrant further investigation. I am wondering if some type of test case could be provided. I tried a few examples but I do not see the delay that the customer sees. Would it be possible to get a test case from the customer? I do not need the actual application - ideally it is some very basic stripped down version... as long as the issue can be reproduced.

Thanks

0 HS FAE Germany over 2 years ago in reply to Ki

TI__Mastermind 30485 points

Hello Ki,
customer uses the enet_layer2_icssg exmaple on the AM6442 evm. Can you try the same?

https://software-dl.ti.com/mcu-plus-sdk/esd/AM64X/08_01_00_36/exports/docs/api_guide_am64x/EXAMPLES_ENET_LAYER2_ICSSG.html

<SDK>/examples/networking/enet_layer2_icssg/am64x-evm/r5fss0-0_freertos/ti-arm-clang/example.projectspec

Regards, Holger

0 Ki over 2 years ago in reply to HS FAE Germany

TI__Guru**** 420630 points

Thank you. I don't have access to the same exact setup but I tried the below:

-enet_layer2_icssg example on AM64x EVM via XDS560v2 LAN

-enet_layer2_icssg example on AM243x LP via XDS110

For both times I tried the same source step from line 1102 that jumped to line 1533 of icssg.c

For the first scenario, that source step (F5) took ~7 seconds.

For the second scenario, that source step took ~20 seconds.

I did not see anywhere the ~3 minutes the customer reported.

I will try setting up a scenario that will mimc the customer more (AM64x EVM via XDS110) and try again.

Thanks

0 Ki over 2 years ago in reply to Ki

TI__Guru**** 420630 points

Ki said:
I will try setting up a scenario that will mimc the customer more (AM64x EVM via XDS110) and try again.

I tried this out and again I saw only a 20s delay. I agree that this is slow but I'm curious how the customer is seeing 3 minutes. Do they see a 3 minute lag everytime? What is the TCLK frequency being used in their CCXML?

0 HS FAE Germany over 2 years ago in reply to Ki

TI__Mastermind 30485 points

Hello Ki,
they use the standard values in the xml file.
Do you think a short video call in which customer can show the problem (live) could help?

Regards, Holger

0 Ki over 2 years ago in reply to HS FAE Germany

TI__Guru**** 420630 points

I'm using the same TCLK speed. My ccxml file is a bit different however. Can they use the generic one that comes with the example?

AM64x.ccxml

I don't expect this to make much of a difference but I suppose you never know.

HS FAE Germany said:
Do you think a short video call in which customer can show the problem (live) could help?

Possibly. Though I would recommend inviting some engineers from the debug team. I will loop you in on an existing thread that I have with them and we can continue the discussion there.

Thanks

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AM6442: debugger slow performance