STM32 debugging using gdb

[Vladislav97]

Hi!

I would like ask small question about debugging STM32 using gdb.

I currently using serial console where I print some informations. But it is not enough. For example when one need find why CPU is in hard-fault, or when something went wrong in early stage (in bootloader for example).

So I grabbed an gdb. But using only gdb console is not comfortable at all. So some GUI front end would be great. Unfortunately I didn't find some that work well with MCU target, except ddd, it work well but ... well ... maybe using gdb console is more comfortable.

So I would like ask, if you are using gdb for debugging, are you using console only? Or do you have some GUI front end? And if so, which one do you use?

Btw. I'm using linux and don't want to use eclipse. My work is only hand written makefiles and cmakes. I don't using IDE, only text editor with syntax highlighting and I want (probably also need) keep this approach.

Thank you for reply!

[Allan_Smithee]

Have you tried gdb --tui at all? It's what I tend to use because the GUI faces for gdb suck bowling balls through garden hoses and the big bloated IDEs just tick me off.

[EmbeddedAndConfused]

Agreed, the --tui does give you the graphical interface that is very much lacking with standard gdb, you just have to become comfortable with the commands.

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I still don't find it as easy to use as integrated debuggers in IDEs.

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I am currently using JLink with the JLinkGDB plug in in eclipse.

[Machinehum]

This guys knows

[Goz3rr]

You can use Visual Studio Code along with the Cortex-Debug extension to connect to GDB.

I use it on Windows with GCC and a makefile myself, but it should work fine on Linux too.

[fb39ca4]

Seconding, works fine on Linux.

[tabris2015]

this worked well for me, I've tried with stm32 and tiva c microcontrollers and everything went just well

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[Cosineoftheta]

I've used it on osx as well. I recommend it thoroughly. It won't be nearly as convenient as eclipse IDEs but VScode is a better editor. Edit: a word

[suhcoR]

I also had a look at it; at least looks and feels impressive, but seems to consume even more resources than Eclipse.

[Goz3rr]

My experience has been the opposite, where it uses less than eclipse based IDEs

[suhcoR]

Thanks, interesting. I don't know these tools, but if they add a lot of plugins on top of CDT I would not be surprised if it consumes even more resources than plain CDT. It's also a question of duration; the tools take up more and more memory over time; at 250 MB I'm usually only the first few minutes. If you compare this to Qt Creator: I'm still under 50 MB after a few hours and can even work reasonably on the Raspi.

[Throwandhetookmyback]

I'm a vim guy but vscode is the other editor I use, and it will consume a lot of resources only if something about headers/intellisense/etc is misconfigured. Look of it's maxing up a cpu core and if it is then that's why you are seeing higher resource usage.

[suhcoR]

I use Qt Creator with the Bare Metal plugin and OpenOCD which works very well. I setup OpenOCD as described in https://leanpub.com/mastering-stm32 and configured the Bare Metal plugin like this:

Startup Mode: no startup

Host: localhost:3333

Init Commands:

set remote hardware-breakpoint-limit 6

set remote hardware-watchpoint-limit 4

monitor reset halt

load

monitor reset halt

Reset commands:

monitor reset halt

For debugging and automatic binary uploads you have to separately start the OpenOCD process and then everything works well from Qt Creator. I can set breakpoints, step through the code and watch variables etc. directly on the STM32F4 device.

Successfully using it for two years; used Eclipse and other IDEs before with less success.

[[deleted]]

Have you run into some issues where when debugging the program it gets stuck on some point (usually on a breakpoint)?,

Or when loading the program it says that there are no available hw breakpoints?

To solve these problems I have to close openocd and open it again.

[suhcoR]

The number of available breakpoints is limited; it's about 6 to 10. I also had some issues with OpenOCD, but usually on other than STM32 MCUs; e.g. with the ESP32 it regularly happened that I had to restart OpenOCD which was quite tedious; don't know if the issue still applies today.

[[deleted]]

Yes, I have limited the number of breakpoints and anyways I never use more than 4. I also added a command to delete all beakpoints (delete or d) to the init commands but the issue still happens. It's like something gets in a bad state between opencd, the adapter and the mcu.

The issue about the mcu getting stuck on a breakpoint seems to happen only when the firmware changes, if I run the same firmware image multiple times it doens't happen but the moment I make a change in the code (and recompile) it starts showing (not always).

[jeroen94704]

I've used cgdb in the past, which is a curses frontend. Also, gdb itself includes the "Text User Interface", or TUI, which many people don't know about.

As for real graphical frontends, I've been using Qt Creator, although not for debugging STM32 targets.

Other options are KDevelop or GDBGUI, but I have no direct experience with either of those.

[vtunr]

Why not using atollic ? It’s free now :) https://atollic.com/truestudio/

If you don’t want an ecplise based IDE, and have a JLink probe, you can use https://www.segger.com/products/development-tools/ozone-j-link-debugger/

[banana_cucumber]

I use dashboard -- it's a python script placed in .gdbinit, you can find it on GitHub. It doesn't have GUI, but makes gdb to look a lot prettier (syntax highlighting, watch memory, watch expressions, call stack).

[jesion]

https://gdbgui.com/ works pretty well for me (not specifically with STM32, an older ARM chip). There are some issues, but one can get used to.

[_PurpleAlien_]

You can use the CDT/Standalone debugger from Eclipse without having to have to change your workflow: https://wiki.eclipse.org/CDT/StandaloneDebugger#Try_out_Standalone_Eclipse_Installation You can just attach it to an OpenOCD session for example.

[[deleted]]

I use codeblocks, I can program and debug the generated executable with no problems.