sousa-gecko/docs/contributing/debugging/debugging_firefox_with_lldb.md

Debugging Firefox with LLDB

See http://lldb.llvm.org/index.html.

Mozilla-specific lldb settings

There's an .lldbinit {searchfox}file <.lldbinit> in the Mozilla source tree, which applies recommended settings and includes a few type summaries and Mozilla-specific debugging commands via the lldbutils module (see {searchfox}python/lldbutils/README.txt). For information about available features see the links above and the Using LLDB to debug Gecko blog post.

The in-tree .lldbinit should be loaded automatically in most cases when running lldb from the command line (e.g. using {ref}mach), but not when using Xcode. See {ref}Debugging on macOS for information on setting up Xcode.

:::{warning} LLDB warning: Xcode 5 only comes with lldb (gdb is gone). The introduction and use of UNIFIED_SOURCES in the source starting around November 2013 has broken the default LLDB configuration so that it will not manage to resolve breakpoints in files that are build using UNIFIED_SOURCES (the breakpoints will be listed as "pending", and lldb will not stop at them). To fix this add the following to your $HOME/.lldbinit file:

# Mozilla's use of UNIFIED_SOURCES to include multiple source files into a
# single compiled file breaks lldb breakpoint setting. This works around that.
# See http://lldb.llvm.org/troubleshooting.html for more.
settings set target.inline-breakpoint-strategy always

Restart Xcode/lldb and restart your debugging session. If that still doesn't fix things then try closing Xcode/lldb, doing a clobber build, reopening Xcode/lldb, and restarting your debugging session. :::

Starting a debugging session

Attaching to an existing process

You can attach to Firefox with following command:

(lldb) process attach --name firefox

Some versions of lldb causes crashes after attaching to Firefox.

Running a new process

To start Firefox under the debugger, run lldb followed by "--", followed by the command line you'd like to run, like this:

lldb -- obj-ff-dbg/dist/Nightly.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox -profile /path/to/profile

Then set breakpoints you need and start the process:

(lldb) breakpoint set --name nsInProcessTabChildGlobal::InitTabChildGlobal
Breakpoint created: 1: name = 'nsInProcessTabChildGlobal::InitTabChildGlobal', locations = 0 (pending)
WARNING: Unable to resolve breakpoint to any actual locations.

(lldb) r
Process 7602 launched: '/.../obj-ff-opt/dist/Nightly.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox' (x86_64)
1 location added to breakpoint 1