Remote Debugging .pdb filesize issue. (Visual Studio 11 Beta)

Question

Hi,

trying to remote debug an Metro app (Visual Studio 11 Beta) i get this:

1>------ Deploy started: Project: ?????, Configuration: Debug Win32 ------

1>Creating a new clean layout...

1>Error : DEP2100 : Cannot copy the file "c:\????\???.pdb" to the target machine "?????". 

1>The file requested must be less than 100 megabytes in size

Why only 100 mb? What do i need to change to debug this app?

Answer 1

I have exactly the same issue :-(

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Jonathan ANTOINE - Découvrez mon livre sur MVVM: http://goo.gl/N6Tmn - http://www.jonathanantoine.com

Answer 2

Hello,

so it appears the internal debug engine when remote debugging has a check to see if a file is greater than 55 megs then deployment will fail ( I know the error message says 100 megs but it is actually less than that)  I will file a bug to see if we can make that configurable or have some other means like exclude certain files.  I will let you the outcome of that bug. 

In the meantime, could you try something like the following as a workaround:

1. Clean solution

2. Build solution

Open up the appxrecipe file usually located in the bin\configuration directory that we just built e.g.

notepad "c:\vsplay\DeploySizeTest\DeploySizeTest\bin\Debug\DeploySizeTest.build.appxrecipe"

3. Remove the lines of the offending pdb file e.g.
<AppxPackagedFile Include="c:\vsplay\DeploySizeTest\DeploySizeTest\Assets\msenv.pdb">
      <PackagePath>somelargesymbolfile.pdb</PackagePath>
      <Modified>2012-03-13T13:36:54.040</Modified>
    </AppxPackagedFile>

4. save the appxrecipe file

5. Press F5 to start debugging

On the debugger machine, it should be resolving symbols locally.  Check by going to debug | windows | modules.

I mention a clean of the solution first because it seems like even after changing the appxrecipe file after I got the deployment error, I would still get the same 100 meg deployment error.  If I first cleaned the solution, rebuilt, and edited the appxrecipe file then it properly deployed.

In general the debugger, is comparing the appxrecipe file with the layout folder on the remote machine e.g. c:\users\mikewong\appxlayouts\packageid and checking to see if it needs to copy additional files.

This does beg the question on if we had a scenario where we had files that are needed by the application and not just for the debugger.  We'll see what the product group has to say about the initial limits in place first.

much appreciated,

mike