RP2040 debugging slow and not really working?

Advanced Solutions Debugging
1

Hi,

I need some help with debugging an RP2040 via Picoprobe from within PlatformIO.

Up until now I have been using the USB Port of the Pi Pico to upload my programm. This was my configuration in PlatformIO that has been working well.

[env:pico]
platform = https://github.com/maxgerhardt/platform-raspberrypi.git
board = rpipico
framework = arduino
lib_extra_dirs = /Users/Succubus/Documents/Arduino/libraries
build_flags = 
    -DTARGET_RP2040 
    -O2
upload_protocol = picotool
upload_port = D:

Since the program has become lager I wanted to have the possibilty to debug my code and hence ordered a Picoprobe.

I have changed the configration to

[env:pico]
platform = https://github.com/maxgerhardt/platform-raspberrypi.git
board = rpipico
framework = arduino
lib_extra_dirs = /Users/Succubus/Documents/Arduino/libraries
build_flags = 
    -DTARGET_RP2040 
    -O2
upload_protocol = cmsis-dap
upload_port = cmsis-dap
debug_tool = cmsis-dap

and this seems to work. The code is uploaded the the PI but very slowly. The normal upload via USB takes about 10 seconds. The SWD methode over 70. I got a lot of messages that looks like this during the upload

target halted due to debug-request, current mode: Thread 
xPSR: 0x01000000 pc: 0x00000184 msp: 0x20041f00

but ultimately

Programming Finished 
 Verify Started 
target halted due to debug-request, current mode: Thread 
xPSR: 0x01000000 pc: 0x00000184 msp: 0x20041f00
target halted due to debug-request, current mode: Thread 
xPSR: 0x01000000 pc: 0x00000184 msp: 0x20041f00
 Verified OK 
 Resetting Target 
shutdown command invoked

so besides being slow this works. Now the real problem is debuggin. I set a breakpoint at the start of my main programm. And start debuggin with ctrl+shift+D.

after about 2 minutes I get a lot of output from the terminal windows again

target halted due to debug-request, current mode: Thread 
xPSR: 0x01000000 pc: 0x00000184 msp: 0x20041f00
Warn : keep_alive() was not invoked in the 1000 ms timelimit. GDB alive packet not sent! (31168 ms). Workaround: increase "set remotetimeout" in GDB
target halted due to debug-request, current mode: Thread 
xPSR: 0xf1000000 pc: 0x000000ea msp: 0x20041f00

and the code stops at a temporary breakpoint somewhere deep in the workings of PlatformIO. Fine let it continue, but now my set breakpoint is never reched. I also got an error message in a pop up that says:

Unable to parse SVD file: TypeError: Cannot read properties of undefined (reading '0')

and

A syntax error in expression, near `'. (from data-evaluate-expression struct)

So basically I have 2 problems the slow speed and the fact that I can not debug at All. I am using Windows 10 with the latest Visual Studio Code release. Everything seems to be up to date. Any idea how to solve this?

.

BR Christopher

2

Set debug_speed higher as needed. What is the size of the firmware.bin?

The SVD parser in the PlatformIO extension is unable to parse the RP2040 SVD file. I already reported this, but I cannot provide any fix for it myself.

3

The firmware is 1.7 MByte accoring to the file explorer. Upload speed is configured to 1000 kHz.

4

Okay, it seems to be running somehow. But during debuggin nothing will be listed under Peripherials. It says loading but nothing happens. Is this normal?

5

Peripherals won’t be shown in the debug view unless PlatformIO fixes their bug on their side. There’s nothing I can do for that. Another extension like Cortex-Debug might work, with a custom configuration of course. The SVD file you should reference is in ~/.platformio/platforms/raspberrypi/misc/svd/rp2040.svd.

6

Flashing is really slow indeed. Even at 10MHz SWD speed. I remember this to be a bit faster… but then again, we are just using RaspberryPi’s OpenOCD version (GitHub - raspberrypi/openocd) to do this, and no special config files. 1.5 MB takes a whopping 3m18s for me to flash.

I’ve opened

because of that.