I can confirm your observations ... debugging threads often results in our
systems stalling. I've never found a solution ... we just make certain that
we've saved before trying to debug. We find that stopping on a breakpoint
in a thread is OK ... but stepping onward is when it gets fatal. I can also
say that it doesn't seem to happen if there's only one thread active. I've
also noticed that the system hasn't actually stalled but everything runs
very slowly ... Process Explorer (if I can get it up and runnning) reveals
no application is actually consuming vast CPU resources and it is a mystery
as to what causes the system to almost stop. With some considerable
patience, it is possible to terminate Delphi from the Task Manager and the
system recovers ... but it is so slow that you can take a break and have a
coffee whilst waiting ! And you're right ... we use XMPlay and that
continues to play without any problems ... but getting XMPlay to the front
can take minutes.
Our work around is to use thread file logging rather than step through. I
also look forward to any advice ... we've found that it happens on all
versions of Delphi and it's simply something that we've come to accept.
Maybe it's simply that Delphi's debugging is not thread safe but quite
what's happening to the machine I've no idea. (This problem is present on
all versions of Delphi and we've had the problem on 98, NT and XP systems.)
Andrew
