How to configure CDB in Qt Creator?

43
votes

The question here is the same as mine but the solution there is not working for me. I am using QtCreator 2.4.1 on Windows 7. When i try to debug a simple hello world app the message displayed is: "The preferred debugger engine for debugging binaries of type 'x86-windows-msvc2010-pe-32bit' is not available....Details: There is no CDB binary available for binaries in format 'x86-windows-msvc2010-pe-32bit"

When i found that cdb.exe was not on my system i had Windows SDK installed with debugger tools and the current location of cdb.exe is "C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.0\Debuggers\x86\cdb.exe" and "C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.0\Debuggers\x64\cdb.exe",

In the CDB tab i configured symbol server as well as the path of CDB.exe, but in vain!

QtCreator->Tools->options->Debugger->CDB Tab->has the following fields:
Additional arguments
use CDB console
Symbol Paths
Source Paths
Correct breakpoint location etc...

Can somebody kindly explain in detail what these mean and what values are expected here. Has anybody successfully debugged any applicaiton using Qt Creator.

Please refer this link:
http://qt-project.org/forums/viewthread/16018/

7
c++cqtqt-creator
Hey there Martin, Did you end up solving this issue as I am having the exact same thing? I saw the answer regarding the new .Net debugging tools location and that QT 2.5 might solve this, but looking at QT 2.5 Beta - they did not. So, any other ideas? maybe reverting to .Net 4.0 tools instead of the new 4.5? – Adi
Hi Adi, i could not solve the issue on Qt Creator, however i downloaded the Qt visual studio plugin(qt.nokia.com/downloads/visual-studio-add-in) and was able to debug the application. – Martin

7 Answers

60
votes

I was having the same problems too, and finally figured out how to solve this. Styne666 gave me a hint. Do the following:

  1. Tools
  2. Options...
  3. Build & Run
  4. Tool Chains
  5. Use the "Clone" button to make a copy of each of the auto-detected MSVC items
  6. In each of the cloned items, you can specify the debugger in the "Debugger" field (e.g. C:\Program Files\Windows Kits\8.0\Debuggers\x64\cdb.exe)
  7. After this everything seems to work...

I should further mention that if you are running a 64-bit version of Windows and a 32-bit version of Qt Creator like I am, you need to make sure that you are pointing to the 32-bit versions of cdb (of which there are x86 and x64 target versions). So for the 32-bit target builds I run this:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.0\Debuggers\x86\cdb.exe

And for x64 builds I run this:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.0\Debuggers\x64\cdb.exe

The tricky part is that it is somewhat difficult to get Microsoft to install the 32-bit version of the debugging tools on your 64-bit machine. A co-worker tried to do so recently and said that he needed to install the Windows 8 tools in order to have the option to do that - the Windows 7 versions would not let you.

5
votes

Took me some time to figure out this with Qt Creator 2.6.0 (on Windows 7), so here it is:

  • Tools, Options...
  • Build & Run, Kits tab, select "Desktop (default)" (under Manual)
  • Click the Manage button and select Edit on the right side of "Debugger:"
  • Engine: CDB, Binary: C:\Program Files\Debugging Tools for Windows (x64)\cdb.exe
2
votes

Depending on the version of Visual Studio you have installed you can find the CDB.exe in different locations. Check if it is available in your system by searching in C:\ drive.

In my case I have Windows 7 (x64) with Visual Studio 2012 Express and Visual Studio 2013 installed and I had to install Microsoft Windows SDK for Windows 7 available here in order to have CDB.exe in my system. After the install, QT Creator was able to detect CDB.exe in this location: C:\Program Files\Debugging Tools for Windows (x64)\cdb.exe.

The only thing you need from the SDK is the Common Utilities | Debugging Tools For Windows.

1
votes

It sounds like what I encountered on OSX with the gdb. If so, the solution for me was (within Qt Creator):

  1. Tools
  2. Options...
  3. Build & Run
  4. Qt Versions
  5. Select the corresponding version
  6. Expand the Details panel
  7. Press the Build button which is inline with "GDB Helper"

In your case, the text would likely be different (CDB instead of GDB perhaps) but the same steps may apply.

1
votes

I try, first install Visual Studio 2010, After, then in CDB Binary puts: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\Remote Debugger\x86\mpishim100.exe, or only download this file!..

Its the solution!!! In windows 8 64 bits!!

1
votes

I got this error because the version of Visual Studio I had installed was much older than the version of Qt I had installed. I had Visual Studio 2015 installed, but my (much more recent) version of Qt was using Visual Studio 2019's compiler, which apparently isn't compatible with Visual Studio 2015's debugger.

The solution in my case was to uninstall and reinstall both Visual Studio and Qt to make sure I have the latest version of both. You can download the latest version of Visual Studio here (if you don't want to pay you should select "Free download" under "Community"), and you can download the latest version of Qt here.

0
votes
  1. Re install windows sdk for respective windows
  2. Correctly configure release/debug dll correctly for any external libraries