Can't debug esp32s3 (DPTechnics Walter board) with GDB

[freesker]

Hi,
I'm trying to debug a simple code flashed on the Walter board from DPTechnics (source here https://www.dptechnics.com/en/products/walter.html) which is based on an esp32s3 chip. This chip embeds a USB-JTAG to allow debugging without any additional hardware.

When I try to debug the code with GDB, I get the following errors after setting a breakpoint and trying to continue executing the code: Error writing instruction to memory: -4 and then Failed to add SW breakpoint !.

I created a test repo to reproduce the bug that you can find here https://github.com/fatalkiller/test_zephyr_esp32_s3.

What can I do to fix it?

[freesker]

Hi,
Any news about this issue ?

[Ballen7]

the openocd in the zephyr toolchain does not work, you need to use the espressiff one

follow these instructions:
https://docs.espressif.com/projects/esp-idf/en/v4.2-beta1/esp32/api-guides/jtag-debugging/building-openocd-linux.html

once installed launch it by doing:
<path_to_espressif_openocd>/openocd -f board/esp32s3-builtin.cfg

then go to ur build in anotha terminal and do
west debug

FYI software breakpoints dont work, you can only do hardware breakpoints

[freesker]

Thank you for your help. It's working!
Do you have a working launch.json config to bind the west debugger with VSCode gui ?

[Ballen7]

No sorry I don't use vscode

[eramirezinnovex]

@freesker did you solve the problem in the end?

[freesker]

No sorry, last time we used the board, when we tried to launch some code with threads, same error. We are now using another board with a Nordic SOC.

[daanpape]

@vThibo have you worked with GDB on Walter?