调试 Visual Studio 扩展时，.pdb 文件不可用

Question

[Environment: W10 x64 Pro v. 20H2, Visual Studio Pro 2019 16.9.4]

I am attempting to debug an open source project, which is a Visual Studio Extension ( AnkhSVN2019 ) and am able to start a VS Extension Debug session where my modified code is being executed.

However, any breakpoints I set in the code are disabled at runtime, and when I mouse over the disabled breakpoint, I get the message

The breakpoint will not currently be hit. No symbols have been loaded for this document.

When I am in the debug session, and I open the Modules window (Debug -> Windows -> Modules), I see that my dll I am interested in is loaded and located at c:\users\conrad\appdata\local\microsoft\visualstudio\16.0_b1ddb83bexp\extensions\extensions-16.0_b1ddb83b\wyo52n3q.czx\Ankh.UI.dll . (It is indeed there.) There is no Ankh.UI.pdb in that directory though. Some hopefully relevant observations:

• The file Ankh.UI.pdb does exist in the ...\bin\Debug\ dir of the project
• The timestamp for the above Ankh.UI.dll is older than recent edits I have made to files within that.dll
• Looking around, I see there is an updated Ankh.UI.dll in C:\Users\conrad\AppData\Local\Microsoft\VisualStudio\16.0_b1ddb83bExp\Extensions\Phil Jollans\AnkhSVN2019\1.0.12\ but no.pdb files in that dir either (Phil Jollans is the owner of AnkhSVN2019 on github)

Back in the Modules window, if I right-click on the Ankh.UI.dll line and choose Symbol Load Information… , a dialog opens with the following information:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Professional\Common7\IDE\Ankh.UI.pdb: Cannot find or open the PDB file.
c:\users\conrad\appdata\local\microsoft\visualstudio\16.0_b1ddb83bexp\extensions\extensions-16.0_b1ddb83b\wyo52n3q.czx\Ankh.UI.pdb: Cannot find or open the PDB file.
C:\AnkhSVN2019\src\Ankh.UI\obj\x86\Release\Ankh.UI.pdb: Cannot find or open the PDB file.
C:\Windows\Ankh.UI.pdb: Cannot find or open the PDB file.
C:\Windows\symbols\dll\Ankh.UI.pdb: Cannot find or open the PDB file.
C:\Windows\dll\Ankh.UI.pdb: Cannot find or open the PDB file.

(btw there is no C:\AnkhSVN2019\ directory.)

What am I missing here?

Answer 1

I have download this project, but how do you debug this project?

I use below steps to debug it, the breakpoint(Ankh.UI) can be hit, and Ankh.UI pdb file can be loaded.

1. Right-click the Ankh.Package project
2. Open Debug page
3. Change Start Action to Start external program with "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Community\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe"
4. Add /rootsuffix Exp in Command line arguments

Answer 2

Got this list of sufficient (although maybe not completely necessary) steps from the Extension owner to get my environment in a state where the Extension is debuggable:

• start the experimental instance (in the debugger)
• remove AnkhSVN from the experimental instance (via Extensions/Manage Extensions)
• close the experimental instance
• remove AnkhSVN from the normal instance
• close visual studio
• in the start menu, click the Reset Visual Studio 2019 Experimental Instance link
• open AnkhSVN in visual studio again
• clean the solution
• start the debugger (which will rebuild the solution – do not build the solution first!)
• if it doesn't install AnkhSVN into the experimental instance, then close it and start the debugger again

This list of steps is IMO completely crazy and shouldn't be necessary to debug an Extension. Can't tell if this is a VS shortcoming or due to the Extension being poorly architected. But at least now I can debug it.