VS Arduino - Start with Debugging Starts Into Bootloader

Apr 19^th, 2024 at 10:56am (UTC)

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Start with Debugging Starts Into Bootloader (Read 1305 times)

yaletowneric Newbies Offline Posts: 8 Joined: Jul 8^th, 2020	Start with Debugging Starts Into Bootloader Jul 14^th, 2020 at 4:45am	Print Post
	I've just started using an Atmel-ICE with a MKR1000. When I hit Debug-Start Debugging the following happens: 1. It appears to upload as normal. 2. Debugging starts (Watch window opens). 3. The onboard LED starts to flash (showing the board is in bootloader mode, also confirmed that the normal COM port in the drop down disappears and is replaced by the bootloader COM port). At this point if I stop the debugger the onboard LED pulsing stops, but the normal COM port doesn't reappear until I press the reset button. I can however successfully debug by doing the following: 1. Stop the debugger. 2. Press the reset button on the board. 3. Use Debug->Attach to Process. The sketch compiles and loads normally with the serial debugger. Build and debug outputs are attached.

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Simon@Visual Micro Administrator Online Posts: 2174 Joined: Feb 13^th, 2019	Re: Start with Debugging Starts Into Bootloader Reply #1 - Jul 14^th, 2020 at 9:58am	Print Post
	Thanks for the clear report and details. The COM Port disappears when uploading via the Atmel ICE, as this removes the boot loader. This can be re-burned either with a Serial Upload, or using the Upload > Burn Bootloader button when you have the Atmel ICE selected as the programmer, and would be completed after the upload of your sketch via the ICE. We will investigate if there is anything else missing here, as similar problems have been seen on other boards (due/zero), and as you suggest for now the best approach is likely to be attach to process (which will work after upload via ICE as well as Serial).


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yaletowneric Newbies Offline Posts: 8 Joined: Jul 8^th, 2020	Re: Start with Debugging Starts Into Bootloader Reply #2 - Jul 14^th, 2020 at 1:16pm	Print Post
	Thanks for the quick reply. I did recognize the issue with the boot loader getting erased when using the Atmel-Ice uploader, so the above notes were with it using the serial uploader. I can shortcut the above procedure slightly by doing the upload with the vMicro start and upload button then attaching. The challenge is that if I need to catch a breakpoint in setup() that has usually passed before I can get the debugger attached.


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Simon@Visual Micro Administrator Online Posts: 2174 Joined: Feb 13^th, 2019	Re: Start with Debugging Starts Into Bootloader Reply #3 - Jul 14^th, 2020 at 6:06pm	Print Post
	Apologies for missing that, and investigating further the Start Debugging issue appears to be a timing issue. If you add the Local Board.txt entry below, and retry the Start Debugging option: Code tools.atmelICE.server.initCmd=-c "sleep 500;init;reset halt" This worked well for me, and it is a 500ms wait essentially before Open OCD connects. This can be extended but not by too much, else GDB fails to connect to OpenOCD (as its sleeping). Also to force the program to reset on attach of the debugger, you can add the below line to the Local Board.txt file, allowing you to debug from the first line of setup(), when using the Attach option: Code vs-cmd.Debug.AttachtoProcess.tools.atmelICE.server.initCmd=-c "init;reset halt"
	« Last Edit: Jul 14^th, 2020 at 6:11pm by Simon@Visual Micro »

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yaletowneric Newbies Offline Posts: 8 Joined: Jul 8^th, 2020	Re: Start with Debugging Starts Into Bootloader Reply #4 - Jul 15^th, 2020 at 4:19am	Print Post
	That worked, thanks!


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