Love VisualGDB. For a noob, it has significantly reduced my learning curve on embedded firmware debugging. Purchase req for Ultimate version is in, as I also do Android and Raspberry Pi development. Hope to get approved before my trial expires.

I have a couple questions about how “Break All” is supposed to work or if there is a better way to do what I need.

First, I had to remap the Ctrl+Break to Ctrl+Shift+Alt+B as my HP laptop keyboard does not have a Break key and Ctrl+Fn+Pause or other combinations would not work. This is a custom embedded project with imported files and build steps.

I start debugging my project using Debug/Start Debugging with GDB. I have additional symbol files I want to load and have to select “Break All”. I load the files and enter “c” to continue. On occasion, my app will go off into never, never land and I want to “Break All” to get in to see if I can figure out where it is. Unfortunately, “Break All” is now grayed out and I have to hit “c” a couple of times to get it to abort/break, which sometimes completely shuts down debugging.

Is “Break All” the right way to stop program execution or is there some other method I should be using?

Is there a better way to load the symbol files before debugging?

Is there a way to start debugging, automatically “Break All”, add the files and then continue?