Is it possible to debug engine code without building from source?

I want do debug some code inside one of the engine’s own plugins, but setting a breakpoint in my IDE doesn’t seem to be working. I have the editor debug symbols installed, which I thought would be enough, or is it required to build the whole engine from source in order to be able to debug engine function calls etc.?

You don’t need to build the engine, but you do need the source

Hmmm, yeah I have that downloaded already too, so that’s not it, but thanks anyway. Will keep trying to figure it out.

Have you regenerated your visual studio project files after downloading the source and symbols? And make sure to start your project from within visual studio, so open de .sln. Make sure the solution configuration is on “Development Editor” and that your startup project is your game. Then hit f5 to start debugging.

Tried it on Xcode and I was able to attach to the running UnrealEditor process but breakpoints won’t resolve. Any ideas as to what may be the problem? I do have both the source and editor symbols installed. Thanks!

Answering my own question about Xcode breakpoints not working, you have to configure the remappings in your .dSYM files. The tutorial below does an amazing job in stating the problem and walking you through on how to solve it.

The tl;dr is that you have to generate .plist files that map the build source files where the engine was compiled in and the source files that are in your machine.

This other thread also talks about the same issue: