I am trying vMicro, and cannot get debugging to work.

I am using ESP32 with a touch-screen.  Screen uses SPI for drawing and I2C for touch interface.  I also use Serial to occasionally output messages.

setup() function inits Serial for 115,200 as follows:

    // Serial port
    Serial.begin(115200);
    Serial.setTimeout(1000);
    Serial.printf("\r\n");
    Serial.printf("\r\n");
    Serial.printf("Free Heap: %d\r\n", (int)ESP.getFreeHeap());

When I build in Release mode with Debug Off, project runs fine and outputs the following minimal info in Serial:

Opening port
Port open

Free Heap: 324536
Found I2C address 93
Begin Touch on address 93
Goodix::begin - calling reset
Goodix::begin - after reset result=1
Goodix::begin return 1
Touch init - SUCCESS
Touch Config is OK
Main screen draw=55

However when I compile in Debug mode with Debug: Serial and "No Optimizations" as recommended, I don't see anything on Serial besides "VMDPR_" and nothing shows on screen.  I disabled the "automatic breakpoint" option that was created at the beginning of setup() function, but it still does not run.

Am I doing something wrong?  Is there some setting I missed to make it work?

You are right.  It works with "Default Optimizations".  I am just used to build without optimizations for debugging, and that may have tripped me.

If I set a breakpoint in a random spot, is there a reason program doesn't just pause there?

I do get messages in "Micro Debug Trace".  Just no breakpoint hits / program pauses.  Is this a limitation of Serial debugging?