Listening for debug connections

The debug daemon is the part of the user interface that listens for a debug connection (when you are debugging compiled languages, this is commonly referred to as a debug engine connection). Depending on the programming language you are debugging or the manner in which you launched your debug session, the debug daemon will automatically listen for debug connections, or you might have to set it to do so.

There are three ways to see if the debug daemon is listening for debug connections:

Observe the state of the daemon icon in the Debug view. If the daemon is listening, the icon appears as . If the daemon is not listening, the icon appears as .
Click the down arrow to the right of the daemon icon. The first menu item will read Debug UI daemon is listening on port: <port number> if the daemon is listening for debug connections.
Hover over the daemon icon. If the hover tooltip is Debug UI daemon is not listening. Select this button to start listening on port: <port number>, the daemon is not listening. If the hover tooltip is Debug UI daemon is listening on port: <port number>. Select this button to stop listening, the daemon is listening on the port indicated.

You might want to stop the debug daemon for security reasons or if the daemon port number is required by another user on a multiuser machine. However, the daemon must be listening to start a debug session for some debuggers.

If the debug daemon is not listening for debug connections, you can start it by performing one of the following tasks:

Click the daemon icon (). The icon will change to indicate that the daemon has started.
Click the down arrow to the right of the daemon icon and select Start listening on port: <port number> from the menu.

If the debug daemon is listening, you can stop it by performing one of the following tasks:

Click the daemon icon (). The icon will change to indicate that the daemon has stopped.
Click the down arrow to the right of the daemon icon and select Stop listening from the menu.

The default port used by the debug daemon to listen for debug connections is 8001. You can change the daemon port number from the Debug view or from the Debug Daemon preference page - and you can specify a range of ports for the debug daemon to listen to. If you are running the user interface on a multiuser machine, you will need to change the port number or specify a range of ports.

To change the port number from the Debug view, complete these steps:

Click the down arrow to the right of the daemon icon and select Change port from the menu.
In the Change Daemon Port dialog box Daemon port field, enter the port number or range of port numbers (described later on in this topic) that you want to use.
Click OK to change the port number. If you change the daemon port and do not want to change the port number, you can easily set it back to its default value by clicking the Restore Defaults push button.

To change the port number from the Debug Daemon preference page, see the related debug preferences topic.

To specify a range of port numbers, separate values by commas and hyphens. For example, specifying 8001,8003,8900-8903 will cause the debug daemon to use the first port that is available in this range of numbers: 8001, 8003, 8900, 8901, 8902, and 8903. After the daemon connection is established, you can hover over the daemon icon and read (in the hover tooltip) which port was used - or you can click the down arrow to the right of the daemon icon, where the port number is available in the menu.

Note:

It is recommended that the default port be left as is, unless you are having problems or are running on a multiuser machine where the default port is already being used.
If the previously-set daemon port is currently in use for a debug session in the workbench, changing the daemon port will not affect previous connections created through the port. The new port number will be used for subsequent debug connections.
If the new port number is already being used by another application, you will be prompted with an error message when the daemon attempts to listen on the new port. In this case, choose a daemon port number that is not being used by another application.