Having trouble with breakpoints in CC 4.2

Chris,

Chris35513 said:

1)  I can't set more than one hardware breakpoint.  I believe that IAR supports up to 8 if I'm not mistaken.  CC only supports one?  Message: "Breakpoint Mgr: Insufficient Resources.  You can free up one resource by disabling software breakpoint support."  Is there a way to enable more than one?

HW breakpoints are limited by hardware. Please check the forum thread below that shows how to use the extra HW breakpoint.

http://e2e.ti.com/support/microcontrollers/msp43016-bit_ultra-low_power_mcus/f/166/p/33465/116425.aspx#116425

Chris35513 said:

2) When I set a breakpoint, CC typically creates 2,3 or up to 8 "duplicate" breakpoints in the breakpoint window, all for the same line.  I then have to go in and delete them.  The number of these duplicates seems random and unrepeatable.  Why does this happen and how can I prevent this behavior?

I got this if I keep adding a breakpoint by right-clicking on the line and selecting "New Breakpoint". However you can remove them using the breakpoint viewer (menu View --> Breakpoints). To detect which lines you have multiple breakpoint entries, simply hover your mouse cursor over the blue dot or the disassembly window and you should see the message "Multiple Markers on this line"

Chris35513 said:

3) The CC help files and wiki tutorial say I can create a breakpoint by double clicking on a line.  But when I do so, nothing happens.  The only work-around seems to be to hover the cursor over the line number next to the line of code, right click and say "Add Breakpoint" and hope it works.  Is this normal?

Thank you for pointing this. Actually it should say if you click on the left of the line number or address. I corrected the text in the CCSv4 Getting Started Guide.

Chris35513 said:

4) The wiki help/tutorial says that a so-called "blue dot" should appear when setting a breakpoint.  Presumably it's supposed to appear in the source code window.  It does not.  After creating (or trying to) create numerous BPs, when I mess with the BP pane by deleting them or double-clicking them, sometimes all of a sudden in the C source code window all the breakpoints (enabled or not) will finally appear as various blue or gray icons (not dots, exactly).  Until I can get this to happen, I have to work without being able to see where the breakpoints are in the code pane.

It may be an issue with drawing the screen. Can you check question 4.1 of the FAQ and see if this applies to you?

http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/FAQ_-_CCSv4

One another idea is the breakpoints are being set in a different position in the source code (in case you are working with optimized code). In this case I would inspect the Disassembly window and enable the source code view (right-click and select "Show source") to double check where exactly in the code the breakpoints are set.

Hope this helps,

Rafael

Hi Rafael, thanks for getting back to me.  As far as the duplicate bps, I get this by right-clicking the line# and saying Add Breakpoint.  Doing this only once often produces multiple BPs in the BP pane as I described.  I see no reason for this so I assume it's abnormal behavior. As far as the BP icons not appearing, when they do finally appear (for ex, by deleting a BP or double clicking it in the BP pane) the icons do indeed all appear at the proper position (line#).  The 64-bit FAQ doesn't seem to apply to my situation but perhaps they're related.

Chris,

Now I get the issue. You are right, by adding a single breakpoint it should not add multiple ones. Unfortunately I can't reproduce it here, but I will keep an eye on my environment (and on the forums) to see if it happens with someone else.

It seems the disappearing icons may have something to do with this issue, but unfortunately without a reproducible way of doing this I can't know for sure.

Can you check if cleaning up the workspace or removing some target cache files help with this? Check the page below:

http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/Troubleshooting_CCS#General_IDE

Hope this helps,

Rafael