[Justin Cranford]

Hi,

I frequently get VMDisconnectedException errors while debugging. Debugging is very unstable in Eclipse 3.2.1 / MyEclipse 5.1.0. I am not sure if this is an Eclipse or MyEclipse problem so I am looking for some direction. I am running the following software versions…

J2sdk 1.4.2_10
Eclipse 3.2.1
MyEclipse 5.1.0
JBoss 3.2.1

I hit the VMDisconnectException exception on average 1-10 times a day while stepping through code after a breakpoint. Some days are worse than others. Every time it happens JBoss immediately resumes execution and debug ignores all breakpoints. The only way for me to debug again is to restart my server and work my way back to the breadpoint. I do a lot of finger crossing and hoping the problem does not happen again. It seems pretty random.

Sometimes the exception happens while stepping over a line of code, but most often it happens when I view an object’s value by mouse-over, inspect, or watch. Usually I don’t get any visual feedback, but sometimes I do in a popup window or right in my Expressions tab. For example, this morning I put a watch on a variable. That brought focus to my Expressions tab with the variable name showing, but a split second later the variable name disappeared and was replaced by this text:

com.sun.jsi.VMDisconnectedException: Got IOException from Virtual Machine occurred while retrieving value.

I recently upgraded from Eclipse 3.1.2 and Eclipse 4.1.1 a month ago. I have been using the same J2sdk 1.4.2_10 and JBoss 3.2.1 all along. Debug in that older Eclipse/MyEclipse combination was rock solid. Debug in the new combination is terribly unstable. I don’t see any updates to MyEclipse 5.1.0 as of today (Feb 26, 2007), but there is a maintenance release of Eclipse 3.2.2. Unfortunately I don’t see my problem in the list of resolved issues from 3.2.1.

Please help. Is there a fix out there somewhere for this issue? If not how can I diagnose the problem or report it to the right people so it gets fixed asap.

Thanks,
Justin

[Riyad Kalla]

JBoss 3.2.1

This is most likely the problem. JBoss 3 never supported JSR-45 which is the debugging spec. So while debugging of class files may work, my guess is that it will be flaky. And JSP debugging definately won’t work.

Debug in that older Eclipse/MyEclipse combination was rock solid. Debug in the new combination is terribly unstable

It’s possible that the older code played nicer with app servers that didn’t support the specification where as the newer code adheres more closely to it, which could explain the constant disconnects.

Unfortunately I don’t have a workaround for you besides upgrading JBoss to a version that does support the JSR-45 specification for more stable debugging or stepping back to MyEclipse 4.1.1 for the time being.

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