WSS Dev: HowTo debug a WebPart

Can you debug a webpart in a WSS page? Yes – not a problem.

Prerequisites:

• From WSPBuilder make your Webpart (WP). See here.
• Activate the feature containing the WP
• Add the WP to a site page
• Open the page in a browser

Debug:

• In VisualStudio (VS) set a breakpoint in your WP code
• RightClick (RC) project – Build (Shift+F6)
• RC project – WSP – Copy2Gac
• (RC project – WSP – Recycle) => w3wp.exe will be shutdown and a new one will be created when a request to a page is done.
• RC project – WSP – Attach – choose w3wp.exe (the one with sql…?) => The breakpoint will be unfilled and not yet be reachable
• Refresh the browser (F5) => this will load debug info
• VS: Stop debugging (shift+F5)
• RC project – WSP – Attach – choose w3wp.exe
• Refresh the browser (F5) => now your breakpoint will be filled and reached

Thanx to Erik Norström.

In addition you would like to have following set in the web.config for your WebApp:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<configuration>
  <SharePoint>
    <SafeMode CallStack="true" AllowPageLevelTrace="true">
      <PageParserPaths>
      </PageParserPaths>
    </SafeMode>
  </SharePoint>
  <system.web>
    <!--
        Enable ASP.NET debugging.
        Set compilation debug="true" to insert debugging
        symbols into the compiled page.
    -->
    <compilation batch="false" debug="true">
    </compilation>
    <!--
        The <customErrors> section enables configuration
        of what to do if/when an unhandled error occurs
        during the execution of a request.
    -->
    <customErrors mode="Off">
    </customErrors>
  </system.web>
</configuration>