Debugging Order of Evens With Symbol Server

I think the key to understanding how everything in ASP.NET ticks is in the order of events, i.e. when controls are added by the page parser to the control tree; when view state is restored and saved; when postback data is processed, etc.

When debugging server controls of all kinds, I find it helpful to keep an eye on the Call Stack window in Visual Studio.NET. The trouble is it displays too little, because it does not have access to debug symbols of the framework DLLs.

It is possible to point VS.NET to Microsoft’s online Symbol Server and have it download symbol files automatically. The setup is explained step by step in Knowledge Base article HOW TO: Use a Symbol Server with the Visual Studio .NET Debugger.

It might take a minute to download debug symbols on the first run, so beware if you’re on a slow connection. Once they are streamed to your hard drive, you’ll have much richer call stack to inspect when debugging. If you’re an internals junkie, the full stack trace reveals where every page request originates and how it progresses.

In case you wonder about the footprint of debug symbol cache: actively debugging a large web application I have only 2Mb worth of symbol files. Not bad at all.