debugging

This page will help describe how you can debug the love binary on windows.

Download the Windows Debugging Tools, they are part of the Windows SDK;

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/gg463009.aspx

We'll be using windbg.exe to find out where LÖVE crashes, or at least get pointed in the right direction. Also download this debug version of LÖVE. It will show more information about the crash than the release build.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14748254/love-0.8.0-win-x86-debug.zip (mirror this)

To gather information follow these steps:

1. Start windbg.exe.

2. Select "Open Executable" from the file menu.

3. Select the love.exe from the debug build above. To also make it load your game, enter the path to the .love file in the "Arguments" text box near the bottom of the dialog. Do avoid spaces and characters like ä, ö, and ü in this text box.

4. Confirm with "open". You don't have to save the workspace if it asks you.

5. It will now load the binary, all dependencies, and then show some info in a textbox. If it loaded correctly, you'll see something like:

   ntdll!DbgBreakPoint:
   76ec0004 cc              int     3

Don't worry about the "symbols not found" stuff.

6. To start the execution, enter the single character command "g" and hit return.

7. Try to make it crash again, then the execution of LÖVE should pause immediately. (Choose retry if a dialog box pops up with the options ignore, retry and cancel)

8. Go back to the windbg window.

9. To display more information about the current state, enter the commands "~* k", "u", "dv" and "r".

10. Save all the text displayed and post it on the issue tracker, a pastebin, or send a private message to me, whatever feels appropriate.

It's possible we won't be able to tell what goes wrong if the crash happens outside LÖVE, like in the graphics driver.