Anyone else suddenly getting "Cannot Connect to the Debugger"

Remote debugging from a Silicon Mac to a Mac in Parallels was working previously and has suddenly stopped.

  • Trying a Hello World app.
  • Debug to Windows in Parallels works
  • Debug to both Sequoia and Tahoe started failing
  • App gets transferred over successfully but can’t connect back
  • Tried all the usual: Firewalls off, updated remote debugger, gave permissions to remote app, Shared Networking setting in Parallels, changed built app location, restarted everything, etc.

Wondering if it’s a new sandboxing setting…

Am I the only one?

Yes, i’m seeing this, too. Tried Remote Debugging from a Linux real PC to macOS Sequoia (Desktop-License). Same error, no chance. Thought it has may to do with my network settings, but now i think it is more likely a Xojo-bug or something changed security-wise again in macOS (very likely).

best, Thomas

It is possibly to do with your network settings. There is an option in the debug configuration dialog for which interface to use. If that is not correct you get a problem. Here:

You must also let Xojo access network scanning for auto configuration to operate:

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When i remote debug:

  1. i enable the remote debugger
  2. enter the settings in the ide
  3. restart te IDE but leave the remote debugger running on the machine.

In that order, otherwise it won’t work

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Tried all suggestions, but i always get this:

Thanks all for the suggestions. No luck.

I too suspect it’s something to do with the MacOS guest VM’s. The Windows guest VM debugs fine to the same host macOS.

Have you tried making yourself two test apps (which you’d build, of course, not debug), to transfer data from the host mac to the guest, so you can see whether the network goes through? Just add a TCPSocket in both apps, one listening and the other connecting to the host, providing its IP address, and send arbitrary data.

This is the one that always got me in trouble. I bet if you give the VM a real IP address on your host adapter, this problem goes away.

Try “Bridged”, so it will look like any device connected directly to your network.

I have the same issue, but using real PC and Mac. They get the IP from my router(Fritzbox).

I wish Bridged worked but I don’t seem to even be able to connect in Bridged mode.

Looks like the Remote Debugger application is no longer fully hardend. Get this in console on launchg of a freshly downloaded (and moved to Applications) copy of the remote debugger.

error 10:38:18.451865+0000 tccd Prompting policy for hardened runtime; service: kTCCServiceAppleEvents requires entitlement com.apple.security.automation.apple-events but it is missing for accessing={TCCDProcess: identifier=com.xojo.remotedebuggerstub, pid=1270, auid=501, euid=501, binary_path=/Applications/Remote Debugger Desktop.app/Contents/MacOS/Remote Debugger Desktop}, requesting={TCCDProcess: identifier=com.apple.appleeventsd, pid=474, auid=55, euid=55, binary_path=/System/Library/CoreServices/appleeventsd},
error 10:38:18.478279+0000 kernel Sandbox: WindowManager(565) deny(1) mach-task-name others [Remote Debugger Desktop(1270)]

That doesn’t mean what you think.

The Remote Debugger Stub is of course built with Xojo. The Xojo framework for a desktop app automatically registers for the Document Open Apple event even if you don’t use it in your code.

That error is telling you that the app is missing the entitlement to use those Apple events, which in turn means that they won’t work… but again, RDS doesn’t need them.

Ah, thanks.

Guess I’m back to square one trying to get it to debug compile to macOS in a Parallels machine.

Did you notice the workaround? Just start/doubleclick the app on macos to start debug session.

Thanks to @Thomas_Kaltschmidt and @DerkJ , the arcane sequence of magic to get remote debugging work is currently:

  1. Launch debugger
  2. Setup IP address in Xojo
  3. Restart Xojo
  4. Remote debug. Get “Can’t connect to debugger” message which quits target app
  5. Manually launch target app. It now is connected for debugging.

Good gravy!

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Issue created if anyone else wants to sign on: https://tracker.xojo.com/xojoinc/xojo/-/issues/80465