ThingWorx 10 Debugger

[rogerjn]

Hi all,

Many of you I think attended the What's new in TW10 webinar yesterday.

The debugger in particular looked like something we have been asking for a long time, which is very good news.

I have been trying TW10 since june but have not experienced any good usefulness with the debugger.

1. Even though I placed several breakpoints in the code most of the time it does not break there. Is there a difference if you place them in JS functions or outside? Shouldn't be?
2. The information shown in the Variable section is most of the time useless. It shows 'com.thingworx.types' for instance on InfoTables.
3. 80% of our mashups are showing grids of InfoTables. These tables are populated from parsing Windchill REST services JSON data, and this would be EXTREMELY useful so use the debugger for this.

What am I missing? Anyone else found the debugger useful? If so, care to explain?

BR,

Roger

[slangley]

Hi @rogerjn 

Our product team has been made aware of this post.  They are currently investigating and a response will be forthcoming.

Regards.

--Sharon

[MA8731174]

I was just curious and would like to know how did you know that there was a webinar on Thingworx 10? are you following some info page from where you got this information. In case you have any info page subscribed for such information then please let me know about it as i would also like to take such webinars. Thanks.

[sharmon]

A replay of the ThingWorx 10 webinar can be found at this link. 

[vkhokhar]

Thank you for trying out the debugger (preview) which was part of our ThingWorx 10.0 release and sharing such detailed feedback—it’s extremely helpful as we continue to refine the experience.

Here are a few points that may clarify what you’re seeing and what’s coming next:

1. Breakpoints
   Without additional context it’s hard to pinpoint why breakpoints aren’t consistently triggering. During the beta phase we saw similar issues with template and shape services; those have been addressed in the upcoming release. If your breakpoints are set directly on a Thing and you still see inconsistent behavior, we’d love to gather more specifics.
   
   

2. Variable View / InfoTables
   We’ve put considerable effort into improving variable inspection for the upcoming ThingWorx 10.1 release, including richer type handling and the ability to edit variables—specifically adding extra logic to work with InfoTables. These enhancements should make the Variable section much more useful.
   
   

3. Mashups with InfoTable Grids
   The same variable-handling improvements mentioned above should significantly help when you’re debugging mashups that rely heavily on InfoTables populated from Windchill REST JSON data.
   
   

4. Roadmap & Early Access
   The debugger feature in ThingWorx 10.0 was intended as a preview and a teaser for what’s coming in ThingWorx 10.1 (planned for December). If you’d like, we can arrange early-preview access in October–November so you can test the enhanced features ahead of time.
   
   

5. Next Steps
   We truly value your input and want to understand your specific scenarios better. Please consider opening a Support Ticket through the PTC Support Portal so we can investigate your exact setup and use cases.
   
   

Thanks again for investing the time to explore the debugger and share constructive feedback—it directly influences the improvements you’ll see in the upcoming release.

[rogerjn]

Hello,

Thank you for replying. I will find time to put together a reply to show the setup I have where breakpoints are not triggering.

Yes, please sign me up for early-preview access to TW 10.1

[rogerjn]

Here is one example I found for instance. This code does NOT break at the breakpoint. in fact it does not break at all going into Debug

[VladimirRosu]

Hi @rogerjn 

What is the value of the components.length in the situation above? Another way of asking is: can you add a logger.warn just above the breakpoint (line 9) and see if it executes?

[rogerjn]

Hi @VladimirRosu 

Yes the logger executes, but the breakpoint do not break the code.

 

 

[VladimirRosu]

Hi @rogerjn 

I just tested with this code and it caught the breakpoint in the function.

It seems that this part (breakpoint in function) is working correct.

Can you replicate this code below and let me know if it works on your end in 10.0.0?

I'm using an unreleased build (10.0.1) but I would like to see if this is the result of some fixes on our side, or there's something hidden.

[rogerjn]

Yes your short code snippet breaks at the breakpoint.

[VladimirRosu]

Thanks @rogerjn 

I think we have two options here: 

1. The official path is to create a Tech Support ticket, where one of our colleagues in Technical Support would work to reproduce this.

2. Before doing that, would you be able to spend a few moments and simplify it as much as possible, to understand where this behavior is manifesting?

[rogerjn]

OK, so I have been testing some more. There is a common issue when fetching data. In most of our applications we are using odata cennector to fetch data from Windchill. For instance in this code the structureJSON variable is using odata-connector to supply the code with JSON data from Windchill.

If I use the breakpoint as shown, the code breaks at line 218. The iterateStructure function call then should kick in using "step into" button in debugger.

However, when doing that the UI changes to the one below. For some reason it shows the service "GetCustomHeaderParameters" on the "ptc-windchill-OData-connector" even though there are no breakpoints there, and it stays visible until code completes, even if I am stepping forward.

 

 

[rogerjn]

Hello again,

Still no luck in getting a response to this.

Also, I am constantly finding new issues with the debugger. If you want any feedback @VladimirRosu and get this to work before rollout you need to improve it a lot I think.

For instance this code does NOT break on the breakpoint. It just skips over.

If I put a breakpoint on the arrow function startline it breaks at that line, but you CANNOT go into the function and break.

 Surely you must be able to replicate this bug??