Windows Debugging not showing anything

[Baobus]

Hi guys,

Very new user to any sort of coding here (10days old ), I am having trouble using the debugging mode in the sense that graphs are showing zero output at all times when I have games running.

Is that possible even possible for the most basic of games? My laptop certainly gets hot, so my gut feeling is saying the debugger isn't showing any data for some reason.

I am on the 30 day trial period atm as well so is that why the debugger function doesn't work?

Thanks in advance for any useful inputs

 

[Roldy]

Interesting to note in the image you posted the toolbar of the IDE is visible and we can see the buttons: debug, run, stop, and clean.

All of those buttons are active, not grey'd out and disabled.

However when I run the debugger it launches the game and those buttons are disabled while the debugger is running, except for the stop button which remains enabled.

There is a brief moment right when the application launches that those buttons quickly enable and then disable again once the debugger attaches.

So my best guess is either:

1. You are not running the debugger in that screen shot (maybe you hit F5 instead of F6)
2. The debugger halted the program at that short moment when application launched and hasn't had time to generate a graph

Other than that seems like a weird problem.

On the IDE, the right side of the workspace will also show memory usage, FPS and a red/green light. What does that display?

I am on the 30 day trial period atm as well so is that why the debugger function doesn't work?

I honestly don't know. Maybe that is true.

 

[Baobus]

Interesting to note in the image you posted the toolbar of the IDE is visible and we can see the buttons: debug, run, stop, and clean.

All of those buttons are active, not grey'd out and disabled.

However when I run the debugger it launches the game and those buttons are disabled while the debugger is running, except for the stop button which remains enabled.

There is a brief moment right when the application launches that those buttons quickly enable and then disable again once the debugger attaches.

So my best guess is either:

1. You are not running the debugger in that screen shot (maybe you hit F5 instead of F6)
2. The debugger halted the program at that short moment when application launched and hasn't had time to generate a graph

Other than that seems like a weird problem.

On the IDE, the right side of the workspace will also show memory usage, FPS and a red/green light. What does that display?



I honestly don't know. Maybe that is true.

I click the debug button with my mouse so there shouldn't be an issue with F5 or F6
I also looked at the IDE you talked about and it just goes from yellow (connecting to game) to red (cannot connect to game) repeatedly - which might be where the issue is, but then how do I get the debugger to "connect to game"?

 

[Roldy]

I click the debug button with my mouse so there shouldn't be an issue with F5 or F6
I also looked at the IDE you talked about and it just goes from yellow (connecting to game) to red (cannot connect to game) repeatedly - which might be where the issue is, but then how do I get the debugger to "connect to game"?

Ok that is good info.

So the game launches but the debugger cannot connect.

Does the game execute? Can you play it?

In the output of the IDE are there errors in the output log? Compile errors?

Was the debugger working previously? Did you make recent changes to the code and then try to debug?

Will the debugger attach to a different project?

In the output log do you see the message that "Start debug server"

Start debug server
Creating Debugger server port:6509
[DbgServer]6509
Collision Event time(microsecs)=2
Total memory used = 5675095(0x00569857) bytes
**********************************.
Entering main loop.
**********************************.
...Waiting for debugger to connect...
Client(-1) Connected: 127.0.0.1
Debugger connected

Do you have a firewall or antivirus that may prevent normal operation?

 

[Baobus]

Ok that is good info.

So the game launches but the debugger cannot connect.

Does the game execute? Can you play it?

In the output of the IDE are there errors in the output log? Compile errors?

Was the debugger working previously? Did you make recent changes to the code and then try to debug?

Will the debugger attach to a different project?

In the output log do you see the message that "Start debug server"

Start debug server
Creating Debugger server port:6509
[DbgServer]6509
Collision Event time(microsecs)=2
Total memory used = 5675095(0x00569857) bytes
**********************************.
Entering main loop.
**********************************.
...Waiting for debugger to connect...
Client(-1) Connected: 127.0.0.1
Debugger connected

Do you have a firewall or antivirus that may prevent normal operation?

the game runs as intended and no the debugger doesn't seem to work with the other 3 projects i have either.
I did wonder if it's a firewall issue but i never had any messages pop up asking me if i want to give the programme permission to run etc. is there a way to manually check whether firewall is preventing debugger from working?

 

[Roldy]

the game runs as intended and no the debugger doesn't seem to work with the other 3 projects i have either.
I did wonder if it's a firewall issue but i never had any messages pop up asking me if i want to give the programme permission to run etc. is there a way to manually check whether firewall is preventing debugger from working?

View attachment 32153

As a test you could briefly turn your firewall off in windows settings. And then see if it will connect. If it does then you know to focus on messing with firewall exclusions and settings. If it still won't connect with the firewall off then you know it is a different issue. Possibly anti virus software or something else.

 

[Baobus]

As a test you could briefly turn your firewall off in windows settings. And then see if it will connect. If it does then you know to focus on messing with firewall exclusions and settings. If it still won't connect with the firewall off then you know it is a different issue. Possibly anti virus software or something else.

i shall try that but i had a brief look in firewall but could find any thing under the name of game maker studio 2 or anything close to it, does it have a weird place holder name

 

[Roldy]

i shall try that but i had a brief look in firewall but could find any thing under the name of game maker studio 2 or anything close to it, does it have a weird place holder name

Generally you wouldn't see anything about Game Maker unless you had added an exclusion (which you might need to do). Typically a firewall blocks everything except what is trusted or excluded from blocking.

Another thing you might try as a quick test is run GMS2 as administrator (shift right click the exe and choose 'Run as administrator.'

User Permissions and Internet Access Required by GMS2

Probably the most commonly-reported issues we see tickets for are incorrect antivirus settings blocking files from being written/read at various stages of using GameMaker Studio 2. This can range f...

help.yoyogames.com

Take a look at the above document about the Debugger. Since the debugger is the IDE you could add an exclusion for the GamemakerStudio.exe.

The In-IDE Debugger

There is no separate module for the debugger - it's the GMS2 executable itself, but if you have to open specific ports for GMS2, then be aware that for the debugger to connect to devices you will need to allow this also.

Remember that you may need to apply the same firewall rule to the game application if it is installed on this machine also, otherwise you won't have two-way traffic.

The default Preference is configured to use TCP 6509, but if you want to change this before you configure your firewall, you can. Whichever port you set here will always be the first one the IDE attempts to use, but it will try the next three sequential ports if it can't connect (e.g. 6509 - 6513):

As a quick test, instead of messing with exclusion, you could disable the firewall completely, see if the debugger will connect just to see if it is the firewall or something else. After that turn the firewall back on.