"ILLEGAL CHARACTERS IN PATH" Error Freezes Dialogue

[ChrisDLog]

When creating a New Embedded Project in Visual Studio Community 2015 with VisualGDB, my toolchain for (by default) is “C:\Program Files (x86)\GNU Tools ARM Embedded\5.4 2016q2” which VisualGDB will not accept because it has spaces, which is understandable. Per an online forum I made the mistake of putting double quotation marks around the path, in an attempt to trick the program into accepting the path spaces and all. As expected, VisualGDB caught the issue and threw a dialogue box that said: “Illegal Characters in Path”. Perfectly fine. The problem comes when I try to change it back, and remove the double quotation marks. Now, there is no toolchain listed and some text that says:

‘VisualGDB does not know any devices compatible with the current toolchain. Click “Install Support for more devices” to download additional support files. If your device is not listed, use the “Specify flags’

Still fine, because I know (or at least think) that I do have the toolchain, but VisualGDB can’t find it because it’s having trouble with the illegal characters. The problem is that the “Install support for more devices” button (picture of the little man) and the dropdown menu are now disabled, or did not load correctly, so that I cannot actually change the path and get rid of the “Illegal Characters in Path” error, or click on any buttones on the .

Can anyone direct me to where VisualGDB saves the text for the ToolChain path so that I can manually edit it outside of Visual Studio? I’ve tried every variation of installing and uninstalling VisualGDB thinkable, deleting the VisualGDB folders in Local and Roaming AppData, and I can’t find any Environmental Variables or Registry Keys that look like they hold the toolchain path.

Many thanks!

[support]

Hi,

Not fully sure how you managed to do that – if you select “select the toolchain by locating gdb.exe”, VisualGDB should handle the quotation marks properly. If you could clarify that, we would fix this behavior.

If you are not sure, try deleting the HKCU\Software\Sysprogs\VisualGDB\ThirdPartyToolchains key in registry – it contains the last used custom toolchains.

[ChrisDLog]

Hey,

I’m having trouble finding a “select the toolchain by locating hdb.exe” option. Is that the little button on the top right with the picture of the little man? The entire “New Embedded Project”->”Device Selection” page is unresponsive.

There is no ThirdPartyToolchains key in the registry that I can find. I tried deleting the key under  HKCU\Software\Sysprogs\VisualGDB\Toolchains but it had no effect. I tried updating to the VisualGDB V5.2 (Beta 2) and it now gives the following error information:

VisualGDB version: 5.2.10.1178
—————— System.ArgumentException ——————
System.ArgumentException: Illegal characters in path.
at System.IO.Path.CheckInvalidPathChars(String path, Boolean checkAdditional)
at System.IO.Path.Combine(String path1, String path2)
at BSPEngine.LoadedToolchain.GetAdditionalPath(Boolean useToolchainRootNotation)
at lg1.g(LoadedToolchain b, Boolean a)
at wa1.k()
at wa1.v(ToolchainType c, RemoteHostSettings a, Boolean b)
at co.z1_2(x a)
at j2.p(Int32 a)

Again, thanks for the help!

[support]

Hi,

OK, based on the extra details you provided in our support system we were able to pinpoint and fix this. Please try this build: http://sysprogs.com/files/tmp/VisualGDB-5.2.12.1259.msi

[Author]

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