Remote Debugging Workflow

Question

 

I am trying to remotely debug a workflow that was created on my virtual development server and then moved to a production sharepoint server.  My virtual server has Visual Studio 2008 installed.  I installed the remote debugger on the production server.  I am able to connect just fine but when I select the w3wp.exe service to attach to i get the error: 'Unable to attach to the process.  The system cannot find the file specified.'  I have 2 workflows that I have tried this on with the same results.  I checked the GAC of both servers and the dll's are there.

 

Any ideas on what may be causing this. 

Answer 1

Just a guess that the network connection between your VS and production server do not share two-way trust.  Please see http://blogs.msdn.com/greggm/archive/2004/10/04/237519.aspx for a way to deal with this.

Answer 2

 

I got the debugging to work finally.  All my settings between the servers were correct but the problem occured when I would select to debug Workflow Code.  If this was selected I get the error.  If I have everything else except Workflow Code checked then It works.  I was also having problems with hitting breakpoints.  This was caused by my pdb files not matching the dll.  To solve this I rebuilt the project and copied the new dll and pdb files to the other server and the remote debuggin worked just fine.

Answer 3

For those Googling this subject: I have also come across this issue but with a different cause.

In my case the remote process had been run from a mapped network drive which was subsequently unmapped.  While the process continued to run perfectly well, the remote debugger could not load the DLLs and returned the rather general message "Unable to attach to the process.  The system cannot find the file specified.".

Remapping the missing drive fixed the problem.

For anyone from Microsoft reading this: a more detailed error message wouldn't go astray.

Answer 4

If you are running into this issue on 2008 try running MSVSMON.exe (the remote debugging monitor) as an Admin. You can do that by right clicking on the icon.

Answer 5

If you have to run msvsmon.exe with the nofirewallwarn argument (Error message when you try to use the Remote Debugging Monitor in Visual Studio on a Windows Vista-based computer: "The Windows Firewall is currently blocking remote debugging" ), start Command Prompt as an administrator , then type msvsmon /nofirewallwarn and press Enter.