CCS/CC3220SF-LAUNCHXL: Breakpoints don't work

I will see if I can reproduce this on my macbook pro.  First I have to track down a CC3220SF.

It almost sounds timing related.  One thing you could try would be to manually launch a debug session.  Open the Target Connections view from the view menu.  Go to your project and expand it.  Right click on the .ccxml file in it and choose "Launch Selected Configuration".  This will launch the debugger configured for your device but not do anything else.  You can then click on the connect button.  The click the load program button and select to load the program.

If that consistently works then it could be timing issue with the target not being between loading the program and setting the breakpoint at main().

John

Launching Selected Configuration creates a solid gray square in the editor space (as if it were a window with nothing in it, not even window adornments). I see no connect, load, select buttons.

What appears to be working is; I start a debug session and as soon as the app finishes downloading, click the debug button again. It asks me if I want to terminate the ongoing session, I select NO. Right after I have my debug buttons start, stop, step etc. and I can debug as normal.   However, sometimes when switching away from CCS to another app and returning, all debug buttons may be gone again. Once again I click the start debug button and answer NO on the question to terminate the ongoing session, select NO and button return.

Really something sloppy going on in CCS

EDIT: In addition to the above, the debug buttons may become hidden when debugging and CCS needs to load a source file (or do something else that takes some time/resources). For example, I was stepping through my code when CCS encountered a function in a currently unloaded file I wanted to step into. Stepping into it hid the debug buttons but also left me with no file loaded. Using the "trick" above, showed the debug buttons and also positioned the cursor where it was supposed to be.

Again, something _seriously sloppy_ going on in CCS!

Can you attach some screen shots?  Like one showing the solid gray square.  I use CCS everyday on my mac and this is not something I have seen.

joost said:

In addition to the above, the debug buttons may become hidden when debugging and CCS needs to load a source file (or do something else that takes some time/resources). For example, I was stepping through my code when CCS encountered a function in a currently unloaded file I wanted to step into. Stepping into it hid the debug buttons but also left me with no file loaded. Using the "trick" above, showed the debug buttons and also positioned the cursor where it was supposed to be.

For this you mean that if you step into a function that requires the editor to open a new file the debugging buttons are disabled and no source file opens?

I have a CC3220SF setup now on my macbook pro now.  I am running Mojave.  I am not seeing any issues with breakpoints or debugging in general.  This almost sounds like a drawing issue where things are not refreshing for you.  Do you see the same thing when running an example from the SDK?

JohnS said:

Can you attach some screen shots?  Like one showing the solid gray square.  I use CCS everyday on my mac and this is not something I have seen.

For this you mean that if you step into a function that requires the editor to open a new file the debugging buttons are disabled and no source file opens?

I have a CC3220SF setup now on my macbook pro now.  I am running Mojave.  I am not seeing any issues with breakpoints or debugging in general.  This almost sounds like a drawing issue where things are not refreshing for you.  Do you see the same thing when running an example from the SDK?

Screenshot attached. This is taken immediately after starting debug. Notice that none of the debug buttons (stop, step into, step over etc.) are active. Notice the system-gray rectangle in upper right corner - it partially blocks the tab of one of the files I have opened. If, at this point, I click the debug button again, it shows a dialog with "you are require to terminate existing debug session to perform the current action. Do you want to continue?"  I press NO and all the debug buttons are now live. I need to do this all the time.

This is running on MacBook Pro 16" 32G/2.3G 8-core i9 with Catalina 10.15.2 and at highest screen resolution (I've changed resolution, makes no difference).

If the editor requires to open a new file during debugging, debugging buttons are indeed disabled (most of the time, not always), the source file opens just fine.

It definitely feels like a refreshing issue. It makes no difference which source I am attempting to run/compile, this is how it behaves all the time.

So the debug window never opened for me (view/debug did nothing). I started playing around with various other windows and interestingly they seem to (try) populate that gray rectangular area. Once I opened the register window, the debug window pop up also. And yes, now starting a debug nicely waits like puppy at first line in main(). yay!

So this is some silly UI programming mistake (affecting possibly only macOS/catalina) - where can I file a bug for CCS?

The Debug view is open but it is in a group of views that are minimized

Probably the minimize button was clicked at some point

You can bring it back by clicking on the restore button just above the bug

That gray box should have had the debug view in it.  Basically when you click on a button for a view that is minimized it opens in a box over top of the other views like this:

When you click away (on something else) it then minimizes again.  I find that useful for things like the project view when in debug mode.  

In your case that pop up was not drawing correctly.  If I can manage to reproduce that I can file a bug against CCS (and likely Eclipse).  I will see if someone else with Catalina here can reproduce.

Regards,

John

Thanks for your help John, its been an uphill battle with CCS as well as the platform/SDK. Is there a place where I can file bug reports?  There are a few other issues such as moving windows on other monitors getting hidden, color/font schemes getting messed up etc. I like to report on.

These E2E forums are really the only place to report issues.  You can use this CCS forum for CCS issues.  For issues with the CC3220 SDK or platform you can use the WiFi forum.

Regards,

John