Hi,
ESP32 is generally much less reliable than ARM-based devices, especially if using pre-release version of the IDF, so strange bugs are to be expected and unless you are OK with resolving them, we would recommend staying with a stable ESP-IDF release until v3.0 is officially released as well.
With debugging stops, it could be a known VS limitation. Pressing Shift-F5 before VisualGDB reports that the session has started, would send Visual Studio into a 30-second wait. If this is the case, please try stopping the session by pressing “cancel” in the GDB Session window instead, then VisualGDB will immediately report session termination to VS.
If this does not help, please let us know if stopping the target (Debug->Break All) and then terminating the session works.