Visual Studio refuses to forget breakpoints?

219
votes

Visual Studio remembers breakpoints from previous debugging sessions, which is awesome.

However, when I'm debugging, and I clear one of these "old" breakpoints by clicking on it, it's only temporarily deleted. What I mean is the next time I debug, the breakpoint that I thought I removed is back.

This is super annoying--is there a setting to make it not do this?

11
visual-studiodebuggingbreakpoints
If you remove them once the debugger has stopped, they'll stay gone for good. – dlev
bug report closed "as by design" back in 2009; explanation from MS - connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/476744/… – zomf
If you have the new beta of VS 2015, you can Send a Frown. Maybe they will listen if we all do it. – jsuddsjr
that connect URL no longer works - but I recall it was something about threads - but how hard is it to add a 'permanently remove breakpoint' right click option regardless of what the reason was??? – Simon_Weaver
Why do they not just provide a "Delete pending breakpoint" option in the breakpoint context menu? It's not rocket science. – Llama

11 Answers

135
votes

go to Debug menu then Delete All Breakpoints Ctrl+Shift+F9

15
votes

The problem is that child breakpoints of your breakpoints persist. Child breakpoints are created (in certain situations) when setting breakpoints during a debug session.

A surefire way of deleting a breakpoint (and children) is to manually look for it in the breakpoint window, and delete it from there. (Select the top node of the entry, hit Delete.)

If you're running an (old) version of Visual Studio that supports VBScript macros, you could run the macro posted here (between debug sessions), to remove child breakpoints. This will make removing breakpoints by clicking the glyph somewhat more effective and predictable, but it continues to be problematic and awkward.

12
votes

I was struggling to find the 'BreakPoints Window'.So here's the quick way to open it- ctrl+alt+B

enter image description here

Or you can manually go to 'Debug->Windows->Breakpoints' to open it.

enter image description here

Or you can hit ctrl+shift+F9 to delete all breakpoints at once!

10
votes

There are some answers here, but in my opinion proposed actions are distractive to use during debugging (I don't want to lose my focus).

My flow with sticky breakpoints during breakpoints is as follows:

During debug, DISABLE the breakpoint instead of removing it.

Possible ways of disabling a breakpoint:

  • hover with cursor and click the two cycle icon;
  • or use context menu on it;
  • or keyboard short-cut CTRL+F9 (not Shift+CTRL+F9, as it clears all breakpoints).

Later on, during development, I remove a disabled breakpoint when I see one.

PS. It's also a good practice to remove all breakpoints once in a while.

3
votes
  • Start your debug session with a minimal number of files open, as you debug the unwanted breakpoints will show up and the containing files will open in new tabs.
  • Terminate the debug session and open the breakpoints window (from the debug toolbar, for some reason it is not in the view menu).
  • For each file, enter the name of the file in the search area of the breakpoints window and press enter to filter out the breakpoints by file.
  • You can then click on each breakpoint in the window to see where they are located in the code and delete them if you want. A bit tedious but that the best way I found to get rid of those unwanted ghost breakpoints... Bookmarks and breakpoints management.. Those functions were probably last enhanced sometime during the last century...
1
votes

Most breakpoints can be removed during debug-session, but some are stuck (probably a bug in Visual Studio).

It you want to remove only the breakpoint which is stuck, then use the "Breakpoints" windows found on the debug menu. There you will probably see that your breakpoint exist multiple times for the same row. Simply rightclick and delete it.

0
votes

A quick alternative answer to this old question that just hit me with Visual Studio 2017.

If possible, just cut and paste the code with the breakpoint on it. The breakpoint goes away with the cut.

0
votes

Go to debug > windows > breakpoints and find breakpoints and remove those from pane.

as It was answered here

0
votes

I consider this a design flaw, its very frustrating and something we have had to live with for a long time. We hit it so often that it just becomes the norm. The solutions given so far are really work around.

A better solution would be to get together and vote for a change on the Visual Studio User Voice. It seems like this has been logged a few times so we should pick one to vote up.

https://visualstudio.uservoice.com/forums/121579-visual-studio-ide/suggestions/31123351-delete-disable-break-point-while-debugging-should

0
votes

If you are debugging a web application and set a breakpoint in chrome, VS code will honor that breakpoint and will not let you remove it. In other words the effective breakpoints is the sum of the breakpoints set in VS Code and in your chrome. And yes, sometimes it's easy to forget that you set a breakpoint in chrome and get lost in trying to figure out how to remove it from VS Code.

0
votes

In newer versions of Vscode, it is called: Remove all Breakpoints

enter image description here

Vscode Version:

Version: 1.57.1
Commit: 507ce72a4466fbb27b715c3722558bb15afa9f48
Date: 2021-06-17T13:28:32.912Z (1 wk ago)