Hi,
Please try updating to the latest Nordic BSP based on SDK 14.0. It contains a few bugfixes, so it might simply fix this as well.
If it doesn’t help, please try building the project using Nordic command-line tools. You can do this by updating the <Nordic SDK>\components\toolchain\gcc\Makefile.windows as follows:
GNU_INSTALL_ROOT := E:/sysgcc/arm-eabi/bin/ GNU_VERSION := 6.2.0 GNU_PREFIX := arm-eabi
Then go to the directory of a sample project (e.g. examples\ble_peripheral\ble_app_hids_mouse\pca10056\s140\armgcc) and build the project by running “make”.
Finally first try debugging your regular VisualGDB project so that the softdevice is programmed, then replace its ELF file (without extension) by the .out file from the manually built project and try debugging again (select “do not rebuild” so that VisualGDB doesn’t rebuild its project). If the problem is also reproduced with the original Nordic firmware, it might be an incompatibility between your SDK and your device (in our experiments devices bought a couple of years ago did not work anymore with SDK 12.0 and simply buying a newer revision of the board solved the problem).
If the original Nordic example works, but the same example built with VisualGDB fails, it is definitely our bug and we will definitely fix it once we can reproduce it (or once you could run a few quick tests on your device that will pinpoint the difference).