Question about whether "platformIO" supports the "MPLAB SNAP" debugger

1

I want to ask if “platformIO” supports Microchip’s “MPLAB SNAP” debugger.

FGH3%5BA6068E~GRX(7S0BQXI

2

Unfortunately, MPLAB SNAP is not supported at the moment due to a lack of a proper GDB server.

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3

Ok. Thank you for your answer

4

@valeros is that something that can be addressed and/or will be?

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I haven’t noticed any movements towards better support for this debug probe, so there is not much we can do until we have a gdb server that can work with our debug backend.

6

I see, thanks. I was interested in this simply because the MPLab Snap seems to be a relatively cheap option to program PIC chips (and it’s currently on sale so goes for about $8). Oh well.

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I’m not sure that we will this support soon. There is no GDB/Debug server. Microchip uses own MDB proprietary tool, see:
https://twitter.com/PlatformIO_Org/status/1180376593501425664

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8

Hi ivankravets, now on Platformio is available the AVR simavr that includes a GDB server. There is any solution to use a Microchip SNAP as a Atmel 328 in circuit debugger?
Thanks in advance
Massimo

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@msquirogac, do we have a debug server for Microchip SNAP probe that supports GDB client?

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As far as I know there is no tool that supports MPLAB SNAP besides MDB. Nonetheless, there is something interesting I found in Microchip’s manual.

MDB, modeled after the popular open source GNU debugger (GDB), is a utility that provides command line access and scripting capabilities for the integrated debugger used by MPLAB® X IDE.

Maybe MDB is able to understand GDB like commands, if that were the case then I think it would be possible to add some kind of support to platformio. However, unlike simavr as nobody have access to its source code any advance would be very contitioned to the avalibity of binaries and the systems where MDB can run.

I think it would be better to wait a bit until some project like openocd starts adding support to it.

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11

Recently I’ve been playing with MPLAB SNAP, and learned that it’s basically 2 devices in one package, that can be switched between “AVR mode” and “PIC mode” (each with different USB VID and PID). Now, for PIC mode I believe all of the above applies, but for AVR mode, supposedly it’s an EDBG device, and it is supported in some other open source projects e.g. Bloom (https://bloom.oscillate.io/docs/mplab-snap-avr-mode), so maybe same level of support in PlatformIO could be possible? I guess it could be pretty similar to Atmel-ICE, which is another EDBG device.

Sorry for reviving an old thread, but it’s pretty much the same subject.