CDB loads variables very slowly in Qt Creator

Question

I tried many tips to help set up the CDB debugger in Qt Creator, but when using it, this thing still takes time to load local variables.

My setup:

• Windows 10 64-bit
• Qt 5.6 (with sources)
• Qt Creator 3.6.1
• Microsoft Visual Studio 14 (2015) (both 32-bit and 64-bit compilers)
• Windows SDK (for debugging tools = CDB)

The General tab in Options-> Debug contains a list of detected auto sources:

Source: Q:/qt5_workdir/w/s Target: C:\Qt\5.6\Src 

My character server and cache are configured in the CDB path as follows:

 srv*http://msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols cache*C:\Qt\CDB-symbols-cache 

At the first start of the debugger, it fills this directory with 70 mb of (supposedly loaded) data, but after subsequent runs it does not change.

I suspect that downloadable sources take a lot of time (although I have an SSD) or that the CDB reloads characters instead of using the cache. Any tips?

EDIT: as requested, the result of the .sympath command on my system:

Character Search Path: srv *

Extended character search path: cache *; SRV * https://msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols

************* Symbol Verification of path verification **************

Response Time (ms) Location

Deferred
SRV *

Answer 1

I had the same issue with QtCreator 4.0.2 and VS 2015. Here is what I did.

• Download Microsoft Character Pack from Character Packs
• Copied it to a local folder (D: \ Symbols)
• In QtCreator, Tools-> Options-> Debugger-> CDB Paths, select “Insert Symbol Server” and select the local folder. It will look below the screen.