Debugging NET Framework source code not available

Question

I am having trouble setting up Microsoft .NET Framework source code debugging for both Visual Studio 2008 and 2010 on Windows 7 x64 (I am having similar trouble on Vista x86 too).

I have followed instructions from this blog post as well as some other resource but without much success. I have also downloaded and installed all symbols from Microsoft Reference Source Code Center and followed their instructions also with no success.

It seems as if Visual Studio keeps loading PDBs without source code in them. It also keeps downloading PDBs even though a proper local cache exists.

This seems like a straightforward thing to do but I must keep repeating some errors in the setup procedure.

Answer 1

It is the blackest of black arts to get that going, I futzed for a long time to get the 3.5 reference source going. Never got 4.0 figured out yet.

One problem I discovered is the symbol cache. If you've been debugging with the symbol server enabled before trying to get the reference source going then it it is filled with the wrong .pdb files, the ones that don't have source info. I fixed that by copying the .pdbs from the reference source (downloaded with the Massdownloader) by hand into the symbol cache directory, overwriting the bad ones. Pay dirt.

Answer 2

I am not sure if this matches your problem but have a look at this KB-article, maybe you have this kind of problem:

http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=kb%3Ben-us%3B957912&x=7&y=9

It is about Visual Studio not being able to recognize breakpoints nor stepping through your source code.

Answer 3

The solution is here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2806993/no-source-available