How to debug Unreal Engine with Visual Studio?

Development Platform & Builds Debugging, Optimization, & Profiling
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1

Hello guys,

Here is what is bothering me. I am working on my game and I need to go through code and debug it. What is really annoying for me is that every time I start debugging (I press f5 in Visual Studio) the debugger isn’t attached to my already opened editor and starts a new editor. It takes me about 20-30 or more just to start the debugging process. There has to be a better way. I have a Unity background. I assume that most of you have played with Unity as well. As you know in Unity you just press f5 and the debugger gets attached to the right process and then you go to the editor, press play and you are done. So far the debugging in Unreal has been a struggle with that waiting for a new editor to be opened every time or attach the debugger manually to the right process. There must be something I am doing wrong.

DISCLAIMER:
I am not trying to start a fanboy war here. I love Unreal, but I am looking for a similar debugging workflow like in Unity.

Cheers.

2

You can either use “Attach to Process” in Visual Studio (CTRL + ALT + P) and select your process that way. Or, if you are building through source, just launch everything from Visual Studio (F5) - just make sure you pass in your UPROJECT file through the parameters (you can use the Unreal Visual Studio extension to help with that) so it gets loaded automatically. Personally I use the later and I’ve never had any issues with debugging code.

Cheers!

3

Thank you, I will look into it. Much appreciated.

4

I recently found a plugin that allows to reattach to the last debugged process by clicking one button or pressing shortcut. Sadly I’ve not yet found an option to put a detach button into the toolbar.

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ErlandR.ReAttach