I have an application with 4 threads working the same code. However, when I step it jumps between the different threads. How can I lock it to one thread so the other threads are ignored for debugging?
7 Answers
5. Step through one single thread without jumping around
How often are you debugging multithreaded code, when you hit your first breakpoint, take a step, and then suddenly you are stopped with the yellow arrow on another thread? The unexpected behavior comes from the breakpoint still being set and consequently being hit. By default, the debugger will stop on a breakpoint any time it is hit. This means that when you take a step, all threads are allowed to run, and one of your running threads hit this breakpoint before the step completes on your current thread. Next time you get in this situation try this:
- Disable or delete the breakpoint that has been hit by the new thread the debugger switched to.
- Press Continue (F5)
- Observe how your first initial step on that first thread completes and now is the active debugging context.
- Since your breakpoints are deleted or disabled, you can continue stepping on that single thread without interruption.
I'm Using Visual Studio Professional 2017, and I use the Threads window to selectively freeze and thaw threads. Usually I have multiple threads of the same code and I only want to freeze them, not others. I actually like the MS Threads window because I can select a subset of threads to freeze. I group the threads by name and can then freeze all the ones running the same code as I am debugging while letting the remaining threads run. I tried using the Erwin Mayer extension, and it worked very well, but it freezes all threads except the one I am running, and I sometimes get into a situation when debugging does not hit the breakpoint I think it should, then because all of the other threads are stopped and the application seems halted. Hitting the pause button, and unfreezing threads in the threads window fixes that issue.
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