Arduino 2.0 debug support

[leroyle (Leroy L.)]

I’ve not tried to use the Arduino 2.xx with debugger support, but

From what I’ve seen in this journey with dev boards there are two general versions re debugging.

1. the dev board has an on board debugging module which is accessible via the normal usb connection. The various IDE’s may have support for these boards built in. The ST Micro boards typically have on board ST-Link modules that can be use to debug the on board micro or even an external dev board that may not contain an on board debug module. NXP boards may also contain on board debug modules.

2. those without an on board debugging module, which requires an external debugging module connecting via the dev boards J-TAG, SWD (Serial Wire Debug) or some other proprietary interface.

Unless I’m mistaken, The Wisblock falls into the second category requiring an external debug module, connecting via the SWD pins.
I’ve used STM boards for debugging the Wisblock but managed to break them, ( the ST board, not sure how/why) Then I picked up the Segger J-Link EDU debugger module (not for pro use), connecting via SWD, that’s been working just fine for sometime now.

I suspect the newest Arduino IDE could be configured to support the Wisblock via the J-Link/ST-Link/SWD interface, and probably already does via some other dev board.

If you really want to get into debugging, take a look at this:

Hint: PlatformIO/Segger JLink RTOS Task Debugging

It was not obvious to me at first, but the underlying PlatformIO runtime that WisBlock uses is using a version of FreeRtos. The runtime main() creates, I think it is four separate tasks (think like threads in the desktop world) rtos required idle thread, runs when nothing else does a USB handler thread, not sure what all it does a callback handler thread our standard user loop() thread that we are used to with bare metal apps. When specifying JTLink as the debug_tool in platformio.ini, PIO wi…

There may be other links in the forum with more debugging info/suggestions. Might also look at Segger’s Ozone debugger as a possible alternative debug IDE, still needs an external debug module.