DOCS/BKPT DEBUG/RECORDING A TRACE
BKPT DEBUG · VS CODE
Recording a trace
The trace views of the ViewAlyzer desktop app, inside VS Code: record what your RTOS and your firmware's own trace channels do, and read it in a timeline, an event table, CPU statistics and trace graphs.
Needs: the ViewAlyzer recorder compiled into the firmware (a few C files; the ViewAlyzer-Examples repository has FreeRTOS, Zephyr and baremetal projects with it wired in), or the Symbols watch set for a recorder-free poll capture.
Recording
BKPT Debug: Record Trace Capture (or the Record tile in the layout) asks how the target is connected: ST-LINK or J-Link over SWO, RTT or the RAM buffer; serial; UDP. Set the target, the CPU clock and how long to record, and start. The Traces tile streams live while the capture runs; when it ends, the recording binds to the ViewAlyzer tiles in place and the Recording menu in the strip lists it with everything recorded before.
A capture needs the probe to itself, so it runs between debug sessions. Without a recorder in the firmware, the Symbols tile's Record stream polls the watch set into a capture at up to 10 kHz.
The views
Every ViewAlyzer view is a tile (the Views menu, under its own heading):
| TILE | WHAT IT SHOWS |
|---|---|
| Traces | Variable traces, memory polls and, during a session, the graphed watch symbols, with zoom, pan and cursors shared across the views; a live track that was zoomed or dragged shows a live chip to resume following, and fit Y is always at hand |
| Timeline | Per-task execution slices, context switches and anomalies, from a whole capture down to microseconds; during a session, the sampled-activity lanes |
| Events | Every recorded event, searchable and filterable, with priority-inversion highlighting |
| CPU | Busy gauge, per-task CPU %, period and jitter outliers, preemption overhead, stack usage, findings with jump-to-time |
| Task Details | Everything about one selected task slice |
| Health | The recording's transport and decode statistics |
They are a focused subset of the desktop app: Open in Full App opens the same recording there in one click, and the desktop app's guide describes each view in depth.
Recordings
Recordings are .vadb files, shared with the ViewAlyzer app and the command line: the same folder, the same index. The Recording menu opens and deletes them; Open Sample Recording in the Command Palette loads a bundled capture when no hardware is at hand.
Free version
The bundled engine runs unactivated: captures are capped in length, the number of user traces shown is limited, and a short cooldown separates captures. The extension shows the limits in effect. Already own ViewAlyzer? BKPT Debug: Use My Licensed ViewAlyzer points the extension at it.