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mvvmvisual-studio-2013expression-blendvisual-studio-debugging

Debugging Blend from Visual Studio. No symbols loaded


I am trying to debug an issue with some code running at DesignTime in Expression Blend 2013.

I have a Windows Store (8.1) project that is loaded in Blend. I want to debug some ViewModel code that is running in the Blend designer.

In previous projects I have opened the same project in Visual Studio and done "Debug - Attach Process" to Blend.

The problem I am seeing on the current dev machine is that all the break points are invalid. They display the warning

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

These breakpoints run fine if I simply Debug - Start in Visual Studio and deploy to the Emulator. Why is Blend not allowing me to attach and debug?

TIA

Pat Long


Solution

  • I needed to debug a different process. Whereas in the past it have attached to Blend.exe for Windows Store Apps this would not work.

    After using Proc Explorer from sysinternals I was able to search for my dlls. This showed that they were loaded by a process called xdesproc.exe.

    The process was listed in Visual Studio's "Attach to Process" as x86 with no managed code. When I attached nothing much happended.

    Then I changed the "Attach to:" settings from "Automatic" to explicitly say Debug these code types "Managed (v4.5, v4.0)".

    Then it would debug. Hurrah!