I have also posted about this here: https://www.avrfreaks.net/s/topic/a5C3l000000BpxfEAC/t391305

Equipment/Toolchain:

IDE: Microchip Studio 7.0.2594

Extensions: Visual Micro 2023.0507.1

Target Chip: ATmega328PB

Debugger: Atmel-ICE debugger using 6-pin ISP/debugWire header

Background:

I can successfully start a hardware debugging session, where Microchip studio informs me that it needs to program the DWEN fuse using SPI, and then it prompts me to power cycle the board and click OK.

I notice that after power-cycling the board, Microchip studio then uploads the new firmware to the ATmega.

So, presumably, the upload is happening using debugWire interface, right?

Once the debug session is initialized, things work as expected (step debugging, run to cursor, watch window etc etc).

If I end the debug session using the stop button (instead of using the "Disable debugWire and Close" option, then susequent attempt to launch debug session results in uploader fail because the uploader is trying to do an SPI upload (instead of debugWire)

I do notice however, that after the power cycle (when the debugWire interface has been activated), there appears to be a secondary upload happening via the debugWire interface.

So it seems that you can upload a new firmware image using only debugWire interface without needing to drop back to SPI first.

Here is a video that demonstrates as much:

https://youtu.be/roRYEvCutBo

Now then:

The Question:

While I am stopped on a breakpoint in the middle of a debugWire debug session, how can I make a change, and recompile/relaunch the debug session without disabling the debugWire interface?

It seems that there is a project called Bloom which has features like this. I'm not sure how I can mangle Bloom into the current setup I have though.

See the following quote from the Bloom Debugging AVR microcontrollers via debugWire page

Edited:


Does anyone know if Mircochip Studio or Visual Micro have this ability?

I think this person has the correct answer over on the avr freaks forum:

https://www.avrfreaks.net/s/topic/a5C3l000000BpxfEAC/t391305?comment=P-2923092



Basically, Microchip studio automatically does the upload using debugWire when the debug session gets launched.

The problem is that the visual micro extension is attempting to do the upload first using ISP, instead of just launch the debug session.

So I need to figure out how to get visual micro to "skip" the upload phase when I click "start debugging and break".

I tried to take a look through the both the "visual micro project properties" and the "JP2App.cppproj" project properties but I couldn't see anywhere to specify/modify the behavior of the upload process.

I'm guessing the upload step is being invoked from the makefile?  Am I way off?

If so, where is the makefile located?

When I click "Debug-Attach to Target" ( after having previously enabled debugWire via power cycle), Microchip studio simply initiates a debug session assuming that the modified source code has already been uploaded to the target (it does not initiate the debugWire programming of the target).



Another thing I tried was changing the debugger chosen in the dropdown from "Atmel Studio Atmel-ICE(ISP)" to "Atmel-ICE(ISP)".

When I did this, the avrdude process that go kicked off for the upload didn't simply fail like the other one when debugWire was active, instead it appears to have used a debugWire command to get the chip to drop back out of debugWire mode first, and then program it using ISP.

After that, I get prompted to power cycle the chip again by Microchip studio and see the mysterious "Uploading.." message in the status bar after I click "OK" following the power cycle.


What I would like to know is:

Is there is any way to get visual micro to skip the upload phase of its magic and simply invoke whatever command it is using to hand over the debug session to Microchip Studio?

Quote:


  !  That did the trick!   

I previously tried this and observed that after I clicked the "close" button in the device programming window, that the debugWire session simply "attached to target" because I didn't notice any "Uploading" message in the status bar while the debugWire session was launching.

But I re-tried it today and sure enough there is a little "Uploading" message in the status bar when the debugWire session auto-launches after closing the Device Programming window.

Here is a video that shows this in action:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Al4Oote4TS0

Thanks for the help!