How to resolve “Waiting for Debugger” message?

Question

I have HTC Comet connected to Eclipse with SDK 2.2. I do a debug build - the application does not run; though it does get installed on the device. On the device I get this message box on the Comet screen

Waiting for Debugger
Application HunyDew (process com.airvine.hunydew) is waiting for the debugger to attach.
[Force Close]

Whereas in the Eclipse console I get these set of messages

[2010-12-07 01:42:29 - hunydewprj] Android Launch!  
[2010-12-07 01:42:29 - hunydewprj] adb is running normally.  
[2010-12-07 01:42:29 - hunydewprj] Performing com.airvine.hunydew.HunyDewAAStartsHere activity launch  
[2010-12-07 01:42:47 - hunydewprj] Application already deployed. No need to reinstall.  
[2010-12-07 01:42:47 - hunydewprj] Starting activity com.airvine.hunydew.HunyDewAAStartsHere on device 308730C861BC  
[2010-12-07 01:42:49 - hunydewprj] ActivityManager: Starting: Intent { act=android.intent.action.MAIN cat=[android.intent.category.LAUNCHER] cmp=com.airvine.hunydew/.HunyDewAAStartsHere }  
[2010-12-07 01:42:49 - hunydewprj] Attempting to connect debugger to 'com.airvine.hunydew' on port 8601  
[2010-12-07 01:43:09 - hunydewprj] Launch error: Failed to connect to remote VM. Connection timed out.  

The application runs fine in the Emulator - please help - what is it that I am missing here? Any hints/suggestions? Thanks

Answer 1

I also enounter this problem. In my environment, I use a tomcat as server and android as client. I found, If tomcat is started, this error " Launch error: Failed to connect to remote VM. Connection timed out." will occur. If tomcat is not run, adb works well.

Answer 2

I was also having the same problem when using Android Studio and GenyMotion. I am able to solve this problem by pausing the program and resuming it again after "Waiting for debugger" message is shown. It may work while using other IDEs and emulators as well.

Answer 3

For those getting this annoying behavior in 4.2.2 you have to un-check the setting for "wait for debugger" in the developer options. Of course, those options were hidden by Google, and you have to do a sneaky trick to get them to show back up. I had set them before they disappeared, and couldn't for the life of me find them again.

This page explains the procedure

Answer 4

I've got this problem for long that I cant get my android emulator or device connect to the debugger while both the console and the emulator were displaying waiting for connecting to the debugger.

And configuration for debug inside eclipse also confused me so much before, but today, i got this problem solved, by the following steps:

When you want to debug a android project, for instance, mypro. you would right click on it in the "Package Explorer". Then choose "Debug as"-->"Android Application".

Then the emulator might stop at the "Waiting for connecting to debugger"(or something else similar to this).

Then you need to connect to the debugger yourself by click "DDMS" to open the DDMS perspective, and click "Devices" tab.

Then you can see a list of processes that are running on your emulator or device.

Double click on the one which you are debugging, then change to the Debug perspective, you can see the debugger is connected and you could debug your program. That's how I solved this problem.

By the way, my OS is Win7 32-bit. Eclipse's version is Helios Service Release 2. Android SDK is rev. 16 and platform-tools' 10.

Update.

I found that it is the problem of my TCP/IP configuration. The debugger can't be connected when i assign a static IP address(for access to internet).

So every time when the debugger is unable to connect, I always do the following steps:

1.close current eclipse window.

2.change the config of IP address to dynamic, it means getting a IP address by DHCP.

3.open up the eclipse again.

then the debugger is able to be connected. I thought it might be a issue of the internal mechanism of java debugger which is using socket connection.

Answer 5

I tried all the solutions above, it fixes the issue sometimes, but still from time to time I happened to get stuck with the "Waiting for the debugger to attach" message box.

The final solution in my case was to unplug all the Android devices but the one I want to debug on. I don't know which one is the culprit: the Nexus 7 running JB 4.2, the HTC One X running ICS, the HTC Desire S running Gingerbread, or the combintation of the 3, but as soon as I only have one device plugged in, it runs smooth as silk.

Answer 6

I got the same problem, I know I wasn't running any other instances, and I could see it with adb devices. I just did a restart of eclipse and it worked.