Breakpoints in custom form not hit when debugging .NET AddIn for AutoCAD 2012 from Visual Studio 2010

By Daniel Du

Issue

I am trying to create .net add-in based on AutoCAD 2012 with Visual Studio 2010. The breakpoints in common classed can be hit, but those in custom forms cannot be hit. I looked into this post http://through-the-interface.typepad.com/through_the_interface/2010/04/hitting-breakpoints-in-net-class-libraries-while-debugging-with-visual-studio-2010.html.But it does not help. I tried “Autodesk.Autodesk.ApplicationServices.Application.ShowModalDialog(oForm)” and “oForm.ShowDialog()”, same result. Is there anything else I can do?

Solution

VS2010 debugger does not work well with fiber; the solution is to turn off fiber in AutoCAD .

If you do not know yet, fibers are being deprecated, as Microsoft is dropping Windows support for fibers. For more information of fibers, please refer to http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms682661(v=vs.85).aspx

To turn it off, you can set NEXTFIBERWORLD to 0, close all documents, and AutoCAD will run fiberless in subsequent documents.  The system environment variable FIBERWORLD can show the current status of fiber.

Another thing should mention is: using NEXTFIBERWORLD = 0 the Ribbon might stop working – when you click on a button on ribbon, nothing happens. You can use command line as a workaround.

It applies to other AutoCAD vertical products like Civil 3D, ACA, AME, etc. as well.