How do I properly set an exception breakpoint in Android Studio?

Question

I have been trying for months to get my debugger to break on my own code, with no success. Every uncaught exception breaks in the ZygoteInit.run() method.

Here is a list of actions I've taken.

1. Added debug { debuggable true } to my app module's build.gradle file
2. Manually added debuggable="true" to my AndroidManifest.xml file
3. Checked the Any exception checkbox in the Breakpoints window
4. Added relevant class filter patterns to the Any exception breakpoint
   • this causes the debugger to completely skip all uncaught exceptions

I have been debugging by looking at the stack trace in Logcat, which does show my classes in the stack trace.

I have seen this version on current & previous builds in the stable AND canary channels.

Is there something here I'm missing?

EDIT: Just to clarify for people, the issue was that I had the "Caught exception" box unchecked. Checking this box fixed my issue.

Here is the relevant part of my Gradle file, if it helps at all.

android {
    compileSdkVersion 22
    buildToolsVersion '22.0.0'

    defaultConfig {
        applicationId "com.--redacted--"
        minSdkVersion 15
        targetSdkVersion 22
        versionCode 30
        versionName "0.0.30"
        multiDexEnabled true
    }
    packagingOptions {
        exclude 'META-INF/LICENSE'
        exclude 'META-INF/LICENSE.txt'
        exclude 'META-INF/NOTICE'
        exclude 'META-INF/beans.xml'
    }
    buildTypes {
        debug {
            debuggable true
        }
        release {
            minifyEnabled false
            proguardFiles getDefaultProguardFile('proguard-android.txt'), 'proguard-rules.pro'
        }
    }
    dexOptions {
        javaMaxHeapSize "4g"
    }
}

Here is a screenshot of my Breakpoints window.

Answer 1

A couple more things to ensure:

• Suspend set to all
• Notifications on:
  • Caught exception if exceptions that have error handling defined are to be caught
  • Uncaught exceptions if exceptions that are not handled are to be caught
• Set the class filters to restrict to include only your code, Android code, and Java code

See more detailed instructions here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/28862538/3063884

This approach catches all exceptions that are raised (when 'caught' and 'uncaught' are checked). Thus all internal exceptions are raised. The specification of a class filter restricts this by excluding some of these exceptions. For example, in the screen-dump above, the ClassNotFoundException, which is raised frequently during start-up, is ignored.

A small downside of this approach is that during app start-up, there may be a message indicating "Cannot find source class for current stack frame". This is because not all of the source code has been loaded yet. This will only occur once during start-up and can safely be ignored. An alternative approach to avoid this (if there are no exceptions expected during app start-up) is to 'Run' the application (as opposed to starting 'Debug'), and then manually attach the app to the debugger via Run -> Attach debugger to Android process ... or by pressing the button in the toolbar.

Answer 2

You need to attach the debugger to a running process

You don't always have to restart your app to debug it.
To debug an app that you're already running:

1. Click Attach debugger to Android proccess
2. In the Choose Process window, select the device and app you want to attach the debugger to

3. To open the Debug tool window, click Debug

   To view and configure the breakpoints settings, click View Breakpoints on the left side of the Debug tool window. The Breakpoints window appears, and there you could configure them.

There are three main types of Exceptions:

1. Checked execptions: which have to be handled by the code. These represent avoidable exceptional conditions which can be handled and recovered from.

2. Runtime Exceptions: which need not be handled by the code. These represent unexpected exceptional conditions which can be handled but not necessarily recover from.

3. Errors: which need not be handled by the code. These represent severe unexpected exceptional conditions which shud not be attempted to handle.