How to Remote Debug Blender with VS Code 

Well this can happen depending on where you're attaching your breakpoints. But it shouldn't happen all the time, like if a breakpoint is attached at a function that never gets called. Something might be wrong if it does.

Awesome! Anything interesting you've worked/are working on?

Not really, was mostly making utilities for personal use (like distributed rendering, level exporters) but nothing serious. Since I use blender for game development, I will probably make some plugins to make exporting easier, like synchronizing animations directly to godot engine. Now with ability to debug properly I feel like it's worth getting into plugins again.

Oh, well then I'm glad you found it helpful :)

Did you save the user preferences after changing it?

Yes, I did... By clicking on the folder-icon on the right Blender opens the right folder, but for some reason it ignores it :/

Seems like a bug with blender. I'd try backing up your settings manually and resetting Blender to factory defaults to see if that fixes it, and check you're on the latest version, otherwise it's likely it's a bug.

I will try, thanks for your suggestions :)

I confirm it worked. Thanks again!

Thanks, I'm glad :)

Sorry, I'm not sure what comment you're referring to, also you just posted the same config twice? If you're experiencing any issues, please check the latest documentation (there's also a troubleshooting section) at the repo. If you're still having problems, don't hesitate to file an issue. :)

@@alansartlog Thanks I updated comment with correct info and will post to repo issues

Please file an issue at the repo and I'll try to take a look when I have some time. I've not used it in a while, but I've tried to keep it working though nobody has filed an issue lately so I thought it still was, though I see 2.9 came out, so it might just be a matter of upping the version. Sometimes even though the APIs I used stay the same, Blender won't run plugins that state an older version.

The addon (as it's published now in the link) won't work with 2.8. I do have a branch that does though: github.com/AlansCodeLog/blender-debugger-for-vscode/tree/update-to-2.8. It should work but I haven't had time to publish a release properly. The tutorial is still 99% the same though, the only thing that's changed is the shortcut to the search and some minor things that have changed for both versions (2.79 and 2.8) for the VS Code config. If it doesn't work for some reason or something is confusing feel free to file an issue in the repo.

Yes, that's the next thing I was going to look into, as I was always having to use the online Blender API reference because the build in API explorer isn't very good imo. Anyways, it seems possible, but I haven't had time to do it yet. First if intellisense isn't working with normal python stuff then in VS Code you have to edit the settings for the workspace and specify the path to python. See code.visualstudio.com/docs/python/environments. Now intellisense gets the autosuggestions based on what packages are installed at that path at site-packages. So for example once that's done, you should see the intellisense for ptvsd. So the trick should be to install blender as a python module as described here: wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:Ideasman42/BlenderAsPyModule. But bear with me I've never built Blender, let alone like that, still quite new to all this. Once I figure it out I'll add it to the documentation on github :) I don't know about it detecting addon classes though, might be possible as well. PS: I used atom for quite some time. I was hesitant to switch to VS Code because I would have to re-configure everything but it's was so much faster even with 20+ extensions installed that after a few days I never touched atom again. It's so good I can't believe it sometimes.

I have setup autocomplete for bpy.xxx by these steps: a)Get PYREFDEF from pitiwazu video description: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-RuCqqy6gLwA.html b)put bpy.py to -> C:\Users\\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python36\Lib That is it, now autocomplete will work for bpy.xxx. But vs_code pylinter will complain about not being able to load bpy ("Unable to import bpy"). If you want to silence pylinter create folder: named "pylintrc" in root folder of your scripts and then put .pylintrc file inside (eg. from: www.dropbox.com/s/hpwndxqkl4fol3y/.pylintrc?dl=0). So in my case file is located in: 'C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.79\scripts\addons\pylintrc\.pylintrc' You can edit .pylintrc in notepad if you want to modify path to bpy.py installed in step b). Thing is auto-completion will work for bpy.xxx, but I'm not sure how to make it work for 'context.xxx' (without using bpy.context.xxx) - it is argument pased to 90% of blender python operators, and it seems JacquesLucke made it work in his blender autocomplete addon... Not sure how he has done it.

Awesome! I'll look into it when I have some time. I want to see how hard it is building Blender as a module first. If it's too hard this is a nice alternative. The only thing is that from what I understand, to get the proper api definitions, the pypredef should be generated from the Blender version you want to develop with. For now the file you linked to will work, but in the future, some parts of the api might change. It will still work for the majority of people, but I would like to be thorough, document how to generate it, etc.

For updates on the autocomplete issue, I'm in the process of comparing the different options, check for updates here: github.com/AlansCodeLog/blender-debugger-for-vscode/issues/5. I haven't gotten around to checking fake-bpy-module and similar solutions, but I did eventually manage to build Blender as a module and... let's just say it was a headache on Windows to do this just for spellcheck. I'm hoping other options will work better but I haven't had time to try them (if they work well and it's possible I'd like to incorporate the generator script into the addon to make the process easier).

Yes, was not fun downloading 5gb of Visual Studio C++ build tools over my slow internet. I'm not 100% sure but I think they are both doing the exact same thing, creating python stubs for all the functions, but there are different ways to do this, so one might be better than another (fake-bpy probably because it was more recently updated).

Is your addon showing up in blender? Once you set the scripts path correctly and restart blender it should now be in the addons list. You then need to set a breakpoint in vscode, run the debugger, then do some action in blender that will trigger it. Please see github.com/AlansCodeLog/blender-debugger-for-vscode for detailed up to date setup instructions just in case. If you have any issues still feel free to file an issue there (I usually reply there faster).

Well I've never used Visual Studio itself, but from what I understand ptvsd was initially build for Visual Studio so it should work, in fact it should work with versions after 3.0, because that requirement is just for VS Code.

There isn't much to set up on the VS Code side though? What would you want it to set up?

Sorry, let me clarify. It's not that the setup is particularly intense; I was able to follow your video and make a few modifications of my own for the Blender + OpenCV & Keras build I set up, but it's more that you have to go get the Git distribution, install the Blender Addon, install ptvsd, etc etc. The installation isn't bad but just a little fragmented. (Opinion) I think that it could benefit from an easy-install script, either in VSCode itself or on pip. The workflow would be like this: - pyvsd==3.0.0 is a requirement and is therefore installed automatically through the package manager - GitPython is a requirement and is used to grab your repo - (The part I'm unsure about) Automatic installation of the Blender Addon into the user's environment should be fairly straightforward, I'll read up more on it to make sure that there are no unintended consequences - If it is a Visual Studio Extension, you could have the option to set up a venv local to the project with the autocompletion features described by Bartosz below My thought is more that this module isn't "searchable" or "self-install" but it could be an VSCode has a pretty good marketplace for putting such an extension. I'll try and make a proof of concept tomarro.

Well, technically you don't need git to install the add-on. The main problem is ptvsd, for which we need pip. Blender doesn't come with pip or any sort of way to manage dependencies as far as I know. From a quick search it seems possible to install pip alongside Blender's bundled python but the user needs admin privileges. It's Blender that needs ptvsd though, not VS Code, so that's why I was confused. I think if Python is installed, VS Code can use pip and install ptvsd, but then how to let Blender know where ptvsd is? Also you say it would be easy to automate the install of the Blender add-on, but I have no idea how that could be done, and you'd probably need admin privileges as well to let VS Code do it. I'm open to suggestions/pull requests though. Feel free to submit an issue at the repo so we can more easily discuss it. PS: Although this add-on supports Visual Studio (because ptvsd does), I have never used it. I'm only familiar with VS Code.

No, this is specifically for addons. To debug Blender you will need to build it. It's pretty straighforward these days, used to be a bit more confusing. Search for building/debugging blender. There's also the devtalk forums if you need help.

Okay, but up to what point is it working? Does the debugger get attached? If the confirmation listener isn't timed out, both VS Code (in the Debug Console) and Blender should print that it was attached. If that's not happening than the problem is that it's not getting attached (there might be several reasons why). If it is attaching, can you confirm that you added the folder holding the addon (with the correct structure) to Blender's preferences, that they saved, and that your addon gets automatically loaded.

Had similar problem, breakpoints were not activated. Solved by changing changing debug configuration on vscode to: "pathMappings": [ { "localRoot": "${workspaceFolder}", "remoteRoot": "${workspaceFolder}"}] Before it was : "pathMappings": [ { "localRoot": "${workspaceFolder}", "remoteRoot": "."}]

Yes, but that reloads all addons and it can cause problems because other addons might error when they restart and they can crash the debug server, see: github.com/AlansCodeLog/blender-debugger-for-vscode/issues/6 for details and possible ways around this. You can still use it though, just know it can cause weird problems.

Blender loads addons from there by default, you don't have to specify that path as far as I know. You can just develop your addon in AppData, it should load. If you specify a path it's telling blender to ALSO load files from there. Usually this is more comfortable since most developers keep their projects in one place. Also imo it's a bit weird to be keeping files in AppData. But then again it's up to you. Both seem to function identically (e.g. if you remove your addon from Blender, regardless of where it is, Blender will attempt to delete the folder).

I'm not sure what you mean?

What I mean is, I'm trying to import .svg files in Blender but I got an error that's preventing the file from getting imported. It worked when I updated to 2.79 and like the next day, the error report pops up.

Okay, but not sure what this has to do with the video. I mean technically you could try to debug the error but I would only do that if I knew it was truly a bug which it probably isn't (svg imports are working fine for me). Have you: - Looked up the error you're getting. - Checked it's not a reported issue. - Tried resetting Blender to factory defaults (if this doesn't work I start suspecting a real bug). - Reinstalling and resetting to factory defaults. You can also try getting help at the blender artists forum. PS: 90% of problems I find end up being file specific. For example I had this weird problem once where trying to smooth in sculpt mode changed my brush size to 1px and resetting my startup file fixed it. Idk why.

If you're using 2.9 you must turn on developer extras. See github.com/AlansCodeLog/blender-debugger-for-vscode#setting-up-this-addon. If you're still having problems please file an issue at the repo.

You got ptvsd version 3.0.0? Anything above won't work and gives that error.

I double checked (and even re-installed) and the version is 3.0.0 AND the add-on found the correct install folder. Hmmm.

Hmm, that's really weird. Apart from what I've covered, which was mostly found through trial and error, there isn't much documentation on all this. I put links to everything that helped me figure it out in the documentation. The only other thing I can think of is maybe something is using the port? I didn't run into that problem, but it's possible that might give that error message? In Windows you can check this in the Resource Monitor > Network Tab > Listening Ports. Check blender.exe is using 3000 and nothing else. Also to eliminate Blender as a factor and help narrow down the problem. Try downloading/copying this script gist.github.com/AlansCodeLog/ff1b246a8e31938e1c3dbfdcbb90522f then from a command prompt run it: "python test.py" and click attach in VS Code. It should attach and print connected and the version. If it doesn't we know the problem is something with VS Code.

Well, just to make things more interesting. I ran the script and it displays 'Waiting' and then doesn't seem to attach (i.e. never prints 'Connected').

And VS Code, what does it do? Same error?

A dialog? or in the debugger output?

A dialog? or in the debugger output?

@@alansartlog Yes, there was an error dialog modal box, same as if you write wrong port number. Btw. My VS Code make it 5678 as default, changing to 3000 helps. The error "Unknown command" disappeared after i've restarted Windows 10, restarting Code nor Blender wouldn't help

@@alansartlog If you are here, how can i debug a script from the Blender Text Editor ?

So you managed to get it working? Unfortunately there is no easy way to debug a script. Although it's possible to connect, it won't actually pause correctly. There is a workaround, see github.com/AlansCodeLog/blender-debugger-for-vscode/issues/4, but I haven't gotten around to investigating how to add this functionality to the addon. My suggestion for now is to just turn the script into an addon.