What STM32 debugging tool has saved you the most time?

[Johnsmiteo]

I'm curious what debugging tools and techniques other STM32 developers rely on during development.

• Do you mainly use STM32CubeIDE, STM32CubeMonitor, or another tool?
• Do you prefer SWD or JTAG for debugging?
• What are your go-to methods for tracking down hard-to-find bugs?
• Any tips for improving debugging efficiency on STM32 projects?

I'd love to hear which tools and workflows have made the biggest difference in your embedded development projects.

[unsigned_char_array]

Most of the time SWD is enough. The SWO pin is very useful for live debugging values.

The hardest bugs to debug are Heisenbugs and bugs that are rare(those that take place every x days).

Heisenbugs can be affected by debuggers and by changing code. And both Heisenbugs and rare bugs only show up when you don’t have a debugger connected because of Murphy's law.

Toggling free GPIO-pins in certain code sections often works without affecting the bug. That can reveal a lot of information. Especially timing information.

Other bugs that are hard to solve are crashes in compiled libraries (e.g. TouchGFX).