gdbgui not starting (IDFGH-11651)

[urbu]

Answers checklist.

• I have read the documentation ESP-IDF Programming Guide and the issue is not addressed there.
• I have updated my IDF branch (master or release) to the latest version and checked that the issue is present there.
• I have searched the issue tracker for a similar issue and not found a similar issue.

IDF version.

ESP-IDF v5.3-dev-888-gcb66d6f6fa

Espressif SoC revision.

ESP32-S3 (QFN56) (revision v0.1)

Operating System used.

Linux

How did you build your project?

Command line with idf.py

If you are using Windows, please specify command line type.

None

Development Kit.

ESP32-S3-WROOM-2

Power Supply used.

USB

What is the expected behavior?

gdbgui starts in browser

What is the actual behavior?

gdbgui fails to start

Executing action: gdbgui
['gdbgui', '-g', 'xtensa-esp32s3-elf-gdb', '--gdb-args', '"-x=/home/urbu/projects/esp/esp-idf/examples/get-started/hello_world/build/gdbinit/gdbinit"']
gdbgui started as a background task 20528
Executing action: post_debug
usage: gdbgui [-h] [-g GDB_CMD] [-p PORT] [--host HOST] [-r]
              [--auth-file AUTH_FILE] [--user USER] [--password PASSWORD]
              [--key KEY] [--cert CERT] [--remap-sources REMAP_SOURCES]
              [--project PROJECT] [-v] [-n] [-b BROWSER] [--debug]
              [--args ...]
              [debug_program]
gdbgui: error: unrecognized arguments: --gdb-args
"gdbgui" exited with 2

Steps to reproduce.

flash example code to esp
idf.py openocd
idf.py gdbgui (in new terminal tab, run from project folder)

Debug Logs.

No response

More Information.

I also tried the idf.py openocd gdbgui command.
There gdbgui doesn't crash but is run as a background task. Still no browser window is opend and if I check netstat. There are no ports other than openocd available on localhost. So It looks like gdbgui is not running

Executing action: openocd
Note: OpenOCD cfg not found (via env variable OPENOCD_COMMANDS nor as a --openocd-commands argument)
OpenOCD arguments default to: "-f board/esp32s3-builtin.cfg"
OpenOCD started as a background task 29803
Executing action: gdbgui
['gdbgui', '-g', 'xtensa-esp32s3-elf-gdb', '--gdb-args', '"-x=/home/urbu/projects/esp/esp-idf/examples/get-started/hello_world/build/gdbinit/gdbinit"']
gdbgui started as a background task 29845
Executing action: post_debug
Open On-Chip Debugger v0.12.0-esp32-20230921 (2023-09-21-13:41)
Licensed under GNU GPL v2
For bug reports, read
        http://openocd.org/doc/doxygen/bugs.html
Info : only one transport option; autoselecting 'jtag'
Info : esp_usb_jtag: VID set to 0x303a and PID to 0x1001
Info : esp_usb_jtag: capabilities descriptor set to 0x2000
Info : Listening on port 6666 for tcl connections
Info : Listening on port 4444 for telnet connections
Info : esp_usb_jtag: serial (68:B6:B3:3E:0E:2C)
Info : esp_usb_jtag: Device found. Base speed 40000KHz, div range 1 to 255
Info : clock speed 40000 kHz
Info : JTAG tap: esp32s3.cpu0 tap/device found: 0x120034e5 (mfg: 0x272 (Tensilica), part: 0x2003, ver: 0x1)
Info : JTAG tap: esp32s3.cpu1 tap/device found: 0x120034e5 (mfg: 0x272 (Tensilica), part: 0x2003, ver: 0x1)
Info : starting gdb server for esp32s3.cpu0 on 3333
Info : Listening on port 3333 for gdb connections
Info : [esp32s3.cpu0] Debug controller was reset.
Info : [esp32s3.cpu0] Core was reset.
Info : [esp32s3.cpu1] Debug controller was reset.
Info : [esp32s3.cpu1] Core was reset.
Info : [esp32s3.cpu0] Target halted, PC=0x40378326, debug_reason=00000000
Info : [esp32s3.cpu0] Reset cause (1) - (Power on reset)
Info : [esp32s3.cpu1] Target halted, PC=0x40378326, debug_reason=00000000
Info : [esp32s3.cpu1] Reset cause (1) - (Power on reset)

[dobairoland]

Hi @urbu. Can you please check the output of gdbgui --version. Only version 0.13.2.0 is supported through idf.py gdbgui. The right version should be available with all dependencies if you are in an ESP-IDF environment (created by install.sh and set-up by . export.sh).

If you want to use a different version of gdbgui then you can but you'll need to call it directly. I.E. you can still call idf.py openocd but you'll have to run gdbgui with all the arguments.

Please note that gdbgui's dependencies might cause that the debugging session is not opening in the browser.

Here are our tested environment available in the ESP-IDF environments (unfortunately you need an older Python for this):

gdbgui==0.13.2.0; python_version < "3.11"
pygdbmi<=0.9.0.2; python_version < "3.11"
python-socketio<5; python_version < "3.11"
jinja2<3.1; python_version < "3.11"
itsdangerous<2.1; python_version < "3.11"

[urbu]

Thank you very much for the help. That was it.
The main problem was that i was using python 3.11. So when I ran install.sh --enable gdbgui. Gdbgui was not installed because of the python version. But I did not notice the message in the console output. I taught I have to install gdbgui manually and when I did that I installed version 0.15.

For anybody else having similar problems. To fix everything I first uninstalled gdbgui. Than I installed python 3.10 next to python 3.11.
Now for esp-idf to use python 3.10 I had to remove the esp-idf folder (don't know how to undo the install.sh which creates a python environment).
Then I got a fresh version of esp-idf from git and fixed the tools/detect_python.sh script:
from this: for p_cmd in python3 python python3.8 python3.9 python3.10 python3.11 python3.12; do
to this: for p_cmd in python3.8 python3.9 python3.10 python3.11 python3.12; do
That way the script doesn't find python 3.11 which is invoked with python3. But does find python3.11.
After that run install.sh --enable gdbgui and . ./export.sh and everything worked like it should.

[dobairoland]

You did choose a rather complicated solution but I'm happy that you resolved it.

[dobairoland]

I've prepared a fix which will fix gdbgui support with Python 3.11+ on Linux and macOS.