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  VS Arduino › › Recycle Bin › expressions box is blank
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Hot Topic (More than 8 Replies) expressions box is blank (Read 2206 times)
RoboBill
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expressions box is blank
Oct 11th, 2013 at 5:04am
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I'm trying to debug a program and have watched your youtube video. When your video gets to uploading, via F5, and the debug windows pop up with your variables (at ~ 14:40) thats where, with my program, I get a blank trace output and blank watch window. 

I know I've messed up something like the project properties... is there a way, short of reinstalling VM, to fix my goof's?

Thanks
  
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RoboBill
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Re: expressions box is blank
Reply #1 - Oct 11th, 2013 at 1:19pm
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Embarrassed just to be clear, I did fill out a When Breakpoint Is Hit form with a couple of variables.

All I see in the expressions window is "waiting for debug data"  Embarrassed
  
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Tim@Visual Micro
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Re: expressions box is blank
Reply #2 - Oct 11th, 2013 at 2:21pm
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Hi, 

Is your sketch code using the serial port? If so at what speed? If not 115k then we will explain how to alter the VM default.

When debug starts does the trace output open and show you messages?
Thanks
« Last Edit: Oct 11th, 2013 at 4:23pm by Tim@Visual Micro »  
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RoboBill
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Re: expressions box is blank
Reply #3 - Oct 11th, 2013 at 6:25pm
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Howdy Cheesy

While I waited for your response, I went and re-installed VM. It seems to be working now. When you know just enough to be dangerous, its so easy to screw things up.

But to answer your questions...

Yes I am using a usb to connect to the arduino AND the software serial to connect my arduino to the XBee shield. 

After I pressed F5, the terminal screen would appear and print out any serial.println(s) I had put in the program. but the trace output was blank along with the expression box.

but everything is now working.... now on to the next problem.... hopefully I can solve by myself. Wink

One other note... a few days ago I had another problem...the expression box would appear empty but it would be for another project in my solution AND it was for another com port. I fixed that by restarting AT6.
  
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Tim@Visual Micro
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Re: expressions box is blank
Reply #4 - Oct 11th, 2013 at 6:42pm
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Great. Sounds like your sketch is using serial.begin(115200) which is the speed the debugger uses by default.

There is some confusion when switching between projects using a different debug port. One confusion is that the expression/watch window title is wrong, the other is that sometimes you have to re-select the serial port. I think there are a few other gremlins when a debug project is closed which will be address in a release by the year end. Thanks for reporting it.

Are you debugging over xbee?
« Last Edit: Oct 11th, 2013 at 6:43pm by Tim@Visual Micro »  
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RoboBill
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Re: expressions box is blank
Reply #5 - Oct 12th, 2013 at 3:31pm
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A few months ago I did try to debug thru the Xbee/shield. It worked less than 75% of the time. So not good enough, but it was FUN building it. I followed articles I found on the web regarding how to upload/debug thru xbees.  The folks at Sparkfun were also very very helpful. Now I'm using a 50 ft usb cable to "stay connected" Wink 

A portion of my project involves using ultrasonic pulses from the arduino/xbee robot to measure distance to two corner arduino/xbee receivers.. i.e. my version of a cheap robotics localization system.  The 2 corner Xbees transmit back to the robot when the ultrasonic pulses have been received. Do a little time/trig on the robot and ta-daa ...  "thar she blows"  Cool

So I use software serial for the xbee tx/rx and the usb connection to monitor the activities with Atmel/VM on all three arduino/xbee units at the same time.  whew

BTW if VM had a simple right click to add a variable to the watch/expression list... that would be GREAT. It would make my debugging of all the timing and trig function variables so much easier.

Thanks for your help
  
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Tim@Visual Micro
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Re: expressions box is blank
Reply #6 - Oct 12th, 2013 at 4:32pm
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Hi Bill,

Yes I agree that an easier way to add watch variables would be great. I hope to find some time to play with the context menus of the code editor and to work out how to detect if the current cursor position is a watchable expression. VS is not very good at giving detail about the code in the editor, I suspect we would need a regex or some other crude string manipulation to extract whatever word the cursor is on.

I did a lot of xbee work some time ago, resetting the arduino for upload was fiddly until I tried the Arduino Fio.

Was it the upload that was weak or were the debug packets being corrupted? If the packets then what speed did you try the debug at? You know you can alter the debug speed in the project properties (RemoteSpeed) and also, if required, set the debug to use softwareSerial?

I am sure you know all this but thought it worth mentioning
« Last Edit: Oct 12th, 2013 at 4:32pm by Tim@Visual Micro »  
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RoboBill
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Re: expressions box is blank
Reply #7 - Oct 12th, 2013 at 7:13pm
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I'm using Uno's & Uno's converted to Duemilanove. The problem I had was the resetting at the right time. I wired up a simple circuit per one web page.. and it sorta worked but apparently only with the Duemilanove. I'm not sure why it didn't work 100%. And those problems you mentioned... that stuff (packets etc) is way over my head  Smiley So I tossed the remote debugging effort...

Besides, I'm just a simple semi-retired mech engr... so I'm real new to this arduino stuff  +  I only have a 30+ year old 2 chan Tek scope that is no match for what you folks use nowadays...  Grin

As for the right click on a variable... how about just highlighting the variable and running a macro.. I have know clue how to do that but maybe its a workaround.
  
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Tim@Visual Micro
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Re: expressions box is blank
Reply #8 - Oct 12th, 2013 at 7:40pm
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Good idea about the macro thanks.

Sorry, by packets I meant did you see garbage in the serial viewer (it's never very complicated with me  Cheesy)
  
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RoboBill
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Re: expressions box is blank
Reply #9 - Oct 13th, 2013 at 3:41pm
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It was several months ago when I tried to remote debug... All I remember is whether or not the arduino tx/rx lights would flash a bunch when I tried to upload.
  
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Tim@Visual Micro
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Re: expressions box is blank
Reply #10 - Oct 13th, 2013 at 4:11pm
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No probs, I'll test it sometime thanks
  
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Tim@Visual Micro
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Re: expressions box is blank
Reply #11 - Sep 6th, 2014 at 10:05pm
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This Topic was moved here from General Board [move by] Visual Micro.
  
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