Is it possible to step through the code of a dll built in release mode that is optimized and has a pdb file that was generated with the pdb-only option? (Here it says that pdb-only vs full makes no difference though.)
I've read multiple times that dlls built in release mode can be debugged if there are pdbs available (here, here, here, here,or here) .
With Visual Studio I only managed to debug (step into the code) a C# console project in release mode when I unchecked Optimize code. Do those answers that say it's possible simply assume that optimization is off or is there some other method?
The first linked answer says that it makes post-mortem debugging easier. So I included a throw statement and then ran the release mode exe directly without Visual Studio. I got the "has stopped working" dialog and when I chose to debug with Visual Studio all I got was
Your app has entered a break state, but there is no code to show because all threads were executing external code.
I didn't see any code although the thrown exception comes directly from my code that has an appropriate pdb-file and not from some other referenced dll.
Edit Here it says that I should get the stack traces with pdb-only but the Call Stack window only shows [External Code].
Maybe Visual Studio is just the wrong tool to get an actual debugging experience?
