Debugging through different solutions in Visual Studio

Currently I have solution A that contains a domain layer base and solution B that references the binaries from solution A. Is there a way to debug straight through from one to the other with two instances of Visual Studio open (one for each solution)?

I've read that you can just add the existing projects from solution A to solution B. Is there another solution that works? I've tried directly attaching solution A to what the running executable in solution B, but it won't let me attach multiple debuggers to the same application.

I should note that when I step into a piece of it, it automatically brings up the code from solution A within solution B's instance of Visual Studio to debug in. I suppose this is acceptable, but you can't just set arbitrary breakpoints and wait for the code to hit them this way.

There is no way to have two instances of Visual Studio debugging the same process. This is a limitation of Windows, and most other operating systems in that at most one process can be debugging another.

It is a perfectly supported scenario though to debug binaries that are not a part of your solution. As you've noted you can happily step into binaries from Solution B while debugging from a Solution A.

One item that will get in the way here though is the debugging feature named "Just My Code". This is a feature aimed at minimizing the debugging experience to just the code in your solution. It is great for normal solutions, but bad when you're debugging arbitrary binaries. It's likely causing a lot of the problems around break points you're seeing. You'll want to disable it by doing the following

• Menu Tools → Options → Debugging
• Unchecked "Enable Just My Code"

You can only have one debugger debugging a process at once. So that means you only need one instance of Visual Studio open.

However, you can just open the .cpp/.cs/whatever file from Solution B into Solution A's copy of Visual Studio and set breakpoints. It'll still work even though those files aren't actually part of the solution.

What if you explicitly load the symbols from Solution A?

If you go to menu Tools → Options → Debugging → Symbols, you can point it at the .pdb file from Solution A.

Then you can see if the symbols are loaded from your binaries by going to menu Debug → Windows → Modules while debugging.

There is a simple fix for this.

Open both solution files and run them. Stop the second solution instance which you want attach to the process, but make sure that ports are running. Now you can attach the port process to the first solution instance and debug like magic.

Here is what I did.

Say a project from solution A refers to a project from solution B and I want to debug into solution B project from solution A project.

Open solution B in Visual Studio. Set the project properties to "Use Local IIS Wb Server", set the project URL and create a virtual directory.

Open solution A in another Visual Studio instance. Set the project properties to "Use Local IIS Wb Server" and Check "Use IIS Express", set the project URL and create a virtual directory.

Press F5 and start debugging the solution B instance of Visual Studio. Then press F5 and start debugging the solution A instance of Visual Studio.

Now both the instances of Visual Studio will be in debug mode.

Start from solution A now and you should be able to debug into solution B just like if both projects were in the same solution.

The key here is to "Use IIS express" for one and "Local IIS Web server" for the other project. This will let you have two debuggers running at once.

Here is a real and easy solution. Just change your solution properties to use the Multiple Startup Projects setting and set which project to start simultaneously.

Follow this:

Debug Multiple Projects at the Same Time in Visual Studio

Ensure the .dll and .pdb files are in the bin folder. You will be able to debug to the other solution opened in the other Visual Studio instance.

We usually have a folder (for example, Dependencies) where the DLL files are referenced from. Place the DLL file in this folder. The DLL files are pushed to this folder when we build the referenced project (using build events. There are other ways too).