Debugging across projects in VS2008?

Question

We have a DLL which provides the data layer for several of our projects. Typically when debugging or adding a new feature to this library, I could run one of the projects and Step Into the function call and continue debugging code in the DLL project. For some reason, that is no longer working since we switched to Visual Studio 2008... It just treats the code from the other project as a DLL it has no visibility into, and reports an exception from whatever line it crashes on.

I can work around that by just testing in the DLL's project itself, but I'd really like to be able to step in and see how things are working with the "real" code like I used to be able to do.

Any thoughts on what might have happened?

Answer 1

It sounds like you have "Just My Code" enabled and VS is considering the other projects to not be your code. Try the following

• Tools -> Options -> Debugger
• Uncheck "Just my Code"
• Try again

Answer 2

Is the pdb file for the dll in the same directory as the dll? This should all work -- I do just this on a regular basis. Look in the Modules window which will show you whether it's managed to load symbols for the dll. If it hasn't then you won't be able to step into functions in that dll.

Answer 3

I've gotten around this issue by opening a class that will be called in the project you need, placing a breakpoint, keep the file open, and run the debugger. The debugger will hit the breakpoint and the relative path that VS uses will be updated so that future classes will be opened automagically.