1612211 - mach run --debugger doesn't work with WinDbg preview

Status: NEW

(Firefox Build System :: General, defect)

Description

[(No longer employed by Mozilla) Aaron Klotz]

WinDbg Preview is the next iteration of WinDbg. Among other things, it includes support for time-travel debugging and scriptability via JavaScript.

Unfortunately this is a Store App, so it can't be launched like a normal desktop app. It is installed as windbgx.exe in a directory that is on the user's path, however a store app cannot be started using msys's fork().

I can start it from the command line by using the start command, which forces process creation to go through native windows stuff, however it looks like mach can't handle that because it doesn't like the command containing two parts.

For example, if I type:

./mach run --debugger="start $(pathcvt2dos $(which windbgx))"

where pathcvt2dos is just a shell function that converts the msys path to windbgx to a Windows path,

mach fails with:

Error: Could not find debugger start c:\Users\<userid>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps\windbgx.exe.
Is it installed? Is it in your PATH?
Could not find a suitable debugger in your PATH.

Comment 1

[Nathan Froyd [:froydnj]]

Does it (grossly) work to use --debugger and --debugger-args (or whatever the argument option is called)? I think that's how people use rr record, but it is not particularly intuitive in this case.

Comment 2

[(No longer employed by Mozilla) Aaron Klotz]

Nope, it doesn't like that either:

Error: Could not find debugger start.exe.
Is it installed? Is it in your PATH?
Could not find a suitable debugger in your PATH.