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Hi,
Yes, we should be able to add an option to replace the raw addresses with $bp or $sp-relative addresses or “section name + offset” syntax (or add another column for that).
With symbols, VisualGDB can already highlight them (and also stack frames) via the “show global symbol locations” button. If it isn’t helpful in your scenario, please let us know the details so we could take it into account when designing this update.
Hi,
The External Memories page of VisualGDB Project Properties is essentially a convenient graphical way of editing the linker scripts and defining the macros for assigning individual variables to sections. So if you are not using the Custom edition, you can achieve the same functionality by editing the files manually (we can also show the necessary modifications to the XML files to make the custom memories appear in Embedded Memory Explorer). You can find extensive documentation on the GNU linker scripts here. Another source of information would be to look through the ST examples from STM32Cube that support external memories (e.g. QSPI).
That said, if you don’t want to manually handle the linker scripts and prefer a convenient GUI that will handle the necessary edits for you, upgrading to the Custom edition might be worthwhile. You could use this page to get an automatic upgrade quote.
Hi,
This is likely caused by the differences between the way J-Link is integrated in different IDEs. Older IDEs like Keil implement most of the debugging stack from scratch and only utilize low-level functions (like reading a specific memory location) from the J-Link DLL.
VisualGDB is built on top of the gdb debugger (that maps high-level requests like “get a value of a variable” into lower-level requests) that requires an extra component (Segger GDB stub) provided by Segger. Since we don’t have access to the source code of that component, unfortunately we are not able to diagnose issues that happen inside it, although it should be covered by the regular Segger support.
Another option would be to try using OpenOCD instead of the Segger GDB stub (you can switch it via VisualGDB Project Properties). OpenOCD is less polished than the Segger gdb stub, especially when it comes to supporting non-mainstream devices, however there are no memory leaks in it that we are aware of.
Hope this explains. Let us know if you have any further questions.
Hi,
This looks like a memory leak in the Segger GDB stub. If you are using VisualGDB with J-Trace, this is a known issue that was recently fixed by Segger in their development branch and should be soon available as a public hotfix. Please double-check with their support regarding specific plans for this.
Hi,
This is likely caused by VisualGDB updating its cache. Although normally VS should not hang for 15 seconds – instead it should display a detailed progress message.
Either way, please try opening the View->Clang IntelliSense Diagnostics Console window. It will contain detailed output explaining what exactly the Clang engine is doing. Feel free to post some snippets from it and we can explain what exactly is going on behind the scenes.
Hi,
Some of the previous BSP releases from us contained a bug when selecting “softdevice programmed separately” caused the code to be compiled without softdevice support (i.e. excluding some functions and ultimately making the firmware unusable). The behavior you are describing might be caused by this bug.
If the file produced by the Nordic build scripts is much smaller, please check the memory utilization via View->Embedded Memory Explorer. It should help quickly locate the functions responsible for most of the RAM/FLASH footprint. If most of the footprint comes from the standard library, please ensure you are using newlib-nano and our latest GCC toolchain.
Hi,
According to our records, your 30-day trial has expired. In order to keep receiving technical support, please purchase a license.
Hi,
No problem, the non-blocking mode behavior looks like our bug. We have fixed it and updated the semihosting framework.
Please install the latest version via VisualGDB Package Manager.
Hi,
This message means that gdb is unable to parse some data it receives from the gdb server (i.e. the Segger gdb stub). Please try running “set debug remote 1” via the GDB Session window to force gdb to dump all interaction between itself and the segger gdb stub, and then try submiting that log to the Segger support. They might be able to tell what is going on.
Hi,
Thanks for the update. The call stack looks like the main thread is waiting for some other window running on a different thread, and does not appear like anything related to VisualGDB.
If limiting the comment lines to 5000 works, VisualGDB could have been incorrectly computing some comment block sizes (we’ve never seen any comment blocks that large in the ESP-IDF codebase), although we could never reproduce this on our side. If you could nail it down to a specific place in the code that triggers the problem, we should be able to investigate it further, otherwise the workaround with limiting the line count should a viable solution.
Hi,
Please let us know the email associated with your license key so that we could verify your support status.
Hi,
Sorry, as the Advanced CMake projects are incompatible with the regular VC++ projects, the VS IntelliSense won’t work for them, hence the Clang IntelliSense is the only option.
Please feel free to let us know if the Clang IntelliSense doesn’t handle some specific cases – we might be able to resolve this. We are also working on an experimental engine build based on the latest Clang 6.0 that improves compatibility with the latest C++ features.
Hi,
No problem, we can help you nail it down. First of all, what exact timings do you mean and how do you measure them?
Second of all, could you confirm that the WriteToFastSemihostingChannel() function is invoked when you call printf()? If yes, does calling it explicitly instead of printf() also result in slow operation?
Finally, do you get the same behavior if you throttle the printf() output (e.g. sleep for 100 msec between each call)? If not, the fast semihosting buffer might be overflowing and delaying the CPU until VisualGDB reads its contents. If this is the case, please ensure you are not using USB virtualization as it significantly reduces the semihosting performance.
