Can't Debug Exported Project

troysandal

I have built my own Gideros custom player for my game by exporting an empty Gideros project and adding all the needed external frameworks to it. It works great and my game is loading in it. However one thing is missing, Lua debugging. I can debug any of the Gideros examples using the built in Gideros Player but I cannot with my exported project. Not sure what I'm missing, how to enable this or if it's possible at all. Thanks in advance.

MoKaLux

troysandal said:

I have built my own Gideros custom player for my game by exporting an empty Gideros project and adding all the needed external frameworks to it.

You built your custom Gideros Player for android or iPhone and you are testing your game using Gideros Studio and your custom Gideros Player? If so, debugging should work!

If you compiled your game and try to see debug logs in Gideros Studio then that won't work!

MoKaLux

EDIT: I am experiencing the same issue ?
Steps to reproduce:
-launch an android Gideros Player
-Gideros Studio detects it the first time
-lauch app => OK
-Wifi connection closed/lost
-wifi reconnection => OK
-android phone shows in Gideros Studio device list => OK
-Gideros Studio buttons (play, stop, debug) flicker
-after that impossible to get Gideros Studio and Player to ever reconnect

Closing android player, closing Gideros Studio, clearing android apps cache, and restarting them all => impossible to launch the app on phone again, buttons still flicker, and phone is visible in Gideros Studio.

SOLVED IT:
- an instable wifi connection seems to break the reconnection of Gideros Studio and Gideros Player on the phone (android in my case)
- I uninstalled then reinstalled my custom android Gideros Player and this looks fine so far, I can play/stop my app and the buttons don't flicker in Gideros Studio no more

troysandal

Apologies, I should have stated my environment in detail. Yes, I exported to an iOS project, built and ran it in Xcode. When I start the project it displays a Gideros Player that I can connect to from Gideros Studio, or ZeroBrane. When I set a breakpoint in my Lua code it is never hit. When I do the same thing using the built in Gideros Player I do hit the break point.

macOS Sonoma 14.2.1 / Apple M1
XCode 15.1
Gideros 2023.11

keszegh

fyi zerobrane debugging does not work since gideros switched to luau. even listening to prints is limited, for me it only prints all the messages at once when you close the player.
(making zbs work again properly is probably my most - or only? - wished for gideros feature for 2024)

troysandal

I didn't realize ZeroBrane debugging wasn't working, thank you.

troysandal

I built an Xcode project demonstrating the exported player that doesn't support breakpoints. Hopefully this will help.

hgy29

Tested here, I confirm debugging with gideros studio doesn't work on iOS, maybe also on other platforms. I think I figured out why, patch is on the way

hgy29

Tested, this seems to fix it: https://github.com/gideros/gideros/commit/f6439e9782abaac1153ccfe8526c7261fde57944

hgy29

keszegh said:

fyi zerobrane debugging does not work since gideros switched to luau.

@keszegh, would you mind trying Gideros/ZBS with the following patched luau interpreter dll: http://apps.giderosmobile.com/pre/lua.dll
Just put it in your Gideros installation folder, backing up the previous one in case it breaks everything.
I had some success putting breakpoints and inspecting variables with this one, but I am not a regular ZBS user.

keszegh

@hgy29 , i'm happy to test, i am grateful and excited about your attempt.
i added the new lua.dll to the gideros root folder but it does not seem to make a change.
i tested printing (only appears after i exit the player), breakpoint (not doing anything), watch (without breaking i cannot test it). also "gdrdaemon task kill" is still necessary between two runs of the player from zbs.
is there a specific zbs version you are using?

hgy29

@keszegh, My zbs is probably one year old. Did you enable mobdebug ? If you did it would break with older DLL, but work with the new one.

keszegh

@hgy29 , you are right, i did disable mobdebug and forgot to add it back.
but then i get an error
[string "luabinding/compatibility.lua"]:79: in function require
sources/utils/mobdebug.lua:13: in function

and the 13th line contains:
local debug = require "debug"

perhaps you can share the mobdebug.lua you are using? i may have modified it when trying to make it work with luau.

keszegh

or even share a full test project that i cannot mess up?

hgy29

Sorry, I am away from office where my code is, but you can just replace this line with:
local debug=debug

debug module is builtin

keszegh

thanks, i did the same with local socket=socket. now it runs although still there is no sign of debugging working.

hgy29

Ok, I’ll send you my mobdebug.lua tomorrow to be sure

keszegh

the issue was hidden behind a pcall.
so now the issue. that's how i did it in the past:
mobd=require('mobdebug').start("192.168.0.164")

but it gives error
[string "luabinding/compatibility.lua"]:79: Module mobdebug not found
stack traceback:
[string "luabinding/compatibility.lua"]:79: in function require
sources/main.lua:30: in function

now i'm a bit lost about what to exclude from execution etc (mobdebug, require). so a test project would be nice, even if only later.
thanks

keszegh

instead of removing to require socket.lua i added socket lua and changed there the math require line and now i manage to run the code and print seems to be immediate. on the other hand at the end of the code (it is a simple computation lua file, no graphics, events etc) it thinks there is a break and waits for stopping the app. this is not a big issue, however, breakpoint does not yet seem to work for me.
in any case there is already some progress, promising.

keszegh

i've played with it more, i've realized that instead of socket.lua i can use lua socket plugin but then i need to require socket.core instead of socket.
but still things are not working, so i would need a test project.
(one of my projects complains about missing mobdebug.lua even though another doesn't, which is one more thing i don't understand now, their setup seems identical).

hgy29

Here is my test project: http://apps.giderosmobile.com/pre/live-coding-simple.zip
With it I can set breakpoints in code executed after mobdebug.start(), for example in the onEnterFrame call.

keszegh

i will test and get back later. thanks

keszegh

@hgy29 i am back to test, but i have issues making debug work. are you using a release version of zbs or some github version? can you maybe tell which exact version?

hgy29

@keszegh I am using ZeroBrane Studio (1.90; MobDebug 0.706), with the test project I sent earlier.
Using Gideros 2024.1 (but the luau library I sent you should be enough), here is what I do:
1. Launch ZBS and open the project
2. Select 'Gideros' interpreter
3. Put a breakpoint, for example on line 14 in the onEnterFrame() function
4. Launch with F5
5. ZBS stops at line 14 and I can inspect variables and stack

keszegh

heh, i put the breakpoint inside the init function which was actually never called.
so it indeed seems to work (also with zbs 2.01), i will let you know if there are additional observations.

one comment: running "gdrdaemon task kill" between consecutive runs of the player still seems necessary.

keszegh

my issues with my project came from the fact that mobdebug was not in the root folder. if it is in some subfolder then how should i require it?

also, a print right after requiring mobdebug is not printed but if i put it later enough then it does. what does this depend on? can you make every print printed?

finally, after quitting the player, every print is repeated once again (with those prints appearing too which were not appearing (as being too close to require for example). can you make it that this does not happen?

overall, this is already a great improvement in using again zbs debugging, thanks.

hgy29

I started working on a new Gideros interpreter for ZBS, in order to better integrate it. I am posting the relevant files here if you want to try but beware it is still WIP and there are a few issues I am aware of already (like I don't know how to properly disconnect the player hooks from ZBS after a session end).
- gideros_protocol.lua and json.lua should go in lualibs folder
- gideros-link.lua in interpreters
- The new interpreter in ZBS menu will be GiderosLink

Files: http://apps.giderosmobile.com/pre/gideroslink.zip

keszegh

btw how come there is no need to add lua socket plugin to be able to require socket.core? is lua socket built-in and so the plugin is not necessary anymore?

hgy29

On windows (and on other desktop platforms), all plugins in the Plugin folder are always loaded, even if you don't include them in the project settings

hgy29

hgy29 said:

I started working on a new Gideros interpreter for ZBS

I forgot to say that it needs Gideros 2024.1 (daemon/bridge changes), and it is a bit more complex (so more error prone) than default interpreter. Here is what it does:
- It sends the project to the player with the help of gdrbridge (like before), but disconnects the daemon after that
- It then connects to the player directly through luasocket and so can control it (send the play command) and retrieves logs (prints) in real time.
- In the future it could implement debugging without the need for mobdebug, that is if ZBS ever gets a debugging API not centered around mobdebug only.

keszegh

@hgy29 , also, when i close the player (by closing its window) then zbs still thinks it is running and i have to stop it there too.