debugging - Visual Studio 2010 debugger steps over methods and doesn't stop at breakpoints

Question

My Visual Studio 2010 debugger sometimes has a very strange behaviour...

Sometimes it doesn't stop at breakpoints, but when it stops, and I want to step into a method, the debugger just steps over it. Also the breakpoints in those over-stepped methods are ignored.

When this strange behaviour occurs, it also does not break on exceptions but simply ignores them.

I've tried to rebuild my project, reset the Visual Studio settings and disabled debugger settings like "Break only in my code", but nothing has worked.

How do I solve this problem?

Answer 1

Here are a couple of reasons and workarounds for why Visual Studio will avoid stepping into a particular method.

• Just My Code is enabled. In certain circumstances the "Just My Code" setting will prevent you from stepping into a method / property. To avoid this you can disable "Just My Code" in the debugger options page (Tools -> Options -> Debugger -> Uncheck "Just My Code")
• Symbols are not loaded for the target method. If the target method is a part of another DLL it's possible that symbols are not loaded for that DLL and hence Visual Studio will not be able to step into it by default. To force the symbols to load, open up the Modules view (Debugger -> Windows -> Modules), navigate to the DLL containing the method, right click and load symbols.
• The method is explicitly marked with a debugger attribute such as DebuggerNonUserCode which causes the debugger to step over the method.
• The method is actually a property or operator and you have "Step Over Properties and Operators" setting enabled (this is the default). This can be disabled via the debugger options dialog.