Debugging on Mac OS X

This document explains how to debug Mozilla-derived applications such as Firefox, Thunderbird, and SeaMonkey on macOS using Xcode. If you want to debug from the terminal see Debugging Mozilla with lldb. For specific information on a way to debug hangs, see Debugging a hang on OS X.

Creating a debuggable build

First, you need to build the application you're going to debug using --disable-optimize--enable-debug-symbols in your .mozconfig (also add --enable-debug if you want assertions etc. compiled in). See Building Firefox for macOS if you need help creating your own build.

Debugging Firefox on macOS 10.14+

macOS 10.14 introduced Notarization and Hardened Runtime features for improved application security. macOS 10.15 went further, requiring applications to be Notarized with Hardened Runtime enabled in order to launch (ignoring workarounds.) When run on earlier macOS versions, Notarization and Hardened Runtime settings have no effect.

Official Builds

At this time, official builds of Firefox 69 and later are Notarized. Uplifts to Firefox 68 and ESR 68 to enable Notarization are planned. As a result, it is not possible to attach a debugger to these official Firefox releases on macOS 10.14+ without disabling System Integrity Protection (SIP). This is due to Notarization requiring Hardened Runtime to be enabled with the com.apple.security.get-task-allow entitlement disallowed. Rather than disabling SIP (which has security implications), it is recommended to debug with try builds or local builds. The differences are explained below.

try Server Builds

In most cases, developers needing to debug a build as close as possible to the production environment should use a try build. These builds enable Hardened Runtime and only differ from production builds in that they are not Notarized which should not otherwise affect functionality, (other than the ability to easily launch the browser on macOS 10.15+ -- see quarantine note below). At this time, developers can obtain a Hardened Runtime build with the com.apple.security.get-task-allow entitlement allowed by submitting a try build and downloading the dmg generated by the "Rpk" shippable build job. A debugger can be attached to Firefox processes of these builds. try builds use the developer.entitlements.xml file from the source tree while production builds use production.entitlements.xml. On macOS 10.15+, downloaded try builds will not launch by default because Notarization is required. To workaround this problem, remove the quarantine extended attribute from the downloaded Nightly:

  $ xattr -r -d com.apple.quarantine /Path/to/Nightly.app

Local Builds

Local builds of mozilla-central do not enable Hardened Runtime and hence do not have debugging restrictions. As a result, some functionality will be permitted on local builds, but blocked on production builds which have Hardened Runtime enabled. Bug 1522409 was filed to automate codesigning local builds to enable Hardened Runtime by default and eliminate this discrepancy.

To obtain a Hardened Runtime build without using try infrastructure, a developer can manually codesign builds using the macOS codesign(1) command with the developer.entitlements.xml file from the tree. This requires creating a codesigning identity.

Disabling System Integrity Protection (SIP)

If debugging a production build is required, follow Apple's documented steps for disabling System Integrity Protection (SIP). Note that disabling SIP bypasses Hardened Runtime restrictions which can mask some bugs that only occur with Hardened Runtime so it is recommended to test fixes with SIP enabled. Disabling SIP has system security implications that should be understood before taking this step.

Creating an Xcode project

These steps were last updated for Xcode 10:

1. Open Xcode, and create a new Project with File > New Project. Select the "Cross-platform" tab then under the "Other" template group select the "Empty" project type. the click Next. Name the project and click Next. Select a temporary directory to create the project files in and then click Create.
2. Before going any further, close the project (File > Close Project) and open Finder. Find the *.xcodejproj directory in the temporary directory, move it into your Mozilla source tree, and then double-click on it to open it.
3. In the left-hand pane in Xcode you should see a tree where the root item has the project name, and under it is the temporary directory that you originally created the Xcode project in under. Right click on the temporary directory and delete it, then right click on the root item, select 'Add files to "<project-name>"', select all the files and directories in your source directory, then click Add. (These will then be progressively added under the root item <project-name> in the left-hand pane. Note that subdirectories may initially appear to be empty, but they too will progressively be populated as Xcode processes the sourse files. Once done, you should be able to open any file quickly by hitting Cmd-Shift-O and typing in the name of a file.)
4. In the Product menu, select Scheme > New Scheme and name your scheme (for example, "Debug"). After you click OK, Xcode should open the settings window for the new scheme. (If not, then open its settings from the Product > Edit Scheme menu.)
5. Select "Run" on the left-hand side of the settings window, then select the "Info" tab. Set the Executable by clicking on "None" and selecting "Other...". A new dialog titled "Choose an executable to launch" will pop up. Browse to the .app file that you want to debug (Firefox.app, NightlyDebug.app etc). The .app file is typically found inside the dist folder in your build directory.
6. If you are debugging Firefox, Thunderbird, or some other application that supports multiple profiles, using a separate profile for debugging purposes is recommended. See "Having a profile for debugging purposes" below. Select the "Arguments" tab in the scheme editor, and click the '+' below the "Arguments passed on launch" field. Add "-P profilename", where profilename is the name of a profile you created previously. Repeat that to also add the argument "-no-remote".
7. Also in the "Arguments" panel, you may want to add an environment variable MOZ_DEBUG_CHILD_PROCESS set to the value 1 to help with debugging e10s.
8. Select "Build" from the left of the scheme editor window, and check that there is nothing listed under Targets (otherwise it may cause problems when you try to run the executable for debugging since you will get build errors).
9. Click "Close" to close the scheme editor.

At this point you can run the application from Xcode, and when you pause or hit breakpoints it should show open the correct source file at the correct line.

Setting up lldb

lldb is the debugger XCode version 5 and above uses under the hood (previous versions used gdb).

The .lldbinit file in the source tree imports many useful Mozilla specific lldb settings and commands but when debugging in XCode this file is not loaded by default since Xcode does not run using $topsrcdir as its current working directory (see bug 942133).  To work around this add the following to $HOME/.lldbinit and set fallbacktopsrcdir to a Mozilla source directory that you regularly update:

# Import Mozilla settings and utilities (the awkward structure of these
# commands is necessary to avoid double importing of the Mozilla .lldbinit):
script fallbacktopsrcdir = <SET THIS TO A MOZILLA SOURCE DIR>
script istopsrcdir = os.path.exists("mozilla-config.h.in")
script topsrcdir = os.getcwd() if istopsrcdir else fallbacktopsrcdir
script ignored = istopsrcdir or lldb.debugger.HandleCommand("command source -s true " + os.path.join(topsrcdir, ".lldbinit"))

see Debugging Mozilla with lldb for more information.

Having a profile for debugging purposes

It is recommended to create a separate profile to debug with, whatever your task, so that you don't lose precious data like Bookmarks, saved passwords, etc. So that you're not bothered with the profile manager every time you start to debug, expand the "Executables" branch of the "Groups & Files" list and double click on the Executable you added for Mozilla. Click the plus icon under the "Arguments" list and type "-P <profile name>" (e.g. "-P MozillaDebug"). Close the window when you're done.

Running a debug session

Make sure breakpoints are active (which implies running under the debugger) by opening the Product menu and selecting "Debug / Activate Breakpoints" (also shown by the "Breakpoints" button in the top right section of the main window). Then click the "Run" button or select "Run" from the Product menu.

Setting breakpoints

Setting a breakpoint is easy. Just open the source file you want to debug in Xcode, and click in the margin to the left of the line of code where you want to break.

During the debugging session, each time that line is executed, the debugger will break there, and you will be able to debug it.

Using Mozilla-specific lldb commands

If you included the .lldbinit when Setting up lldb, you can use Mozilla-specific lldb commands in the console, located in the Debug area of XCode. For example, type js to see the JavaScript stack. For more information, see Debugging Mozilla with lldb.

Debugging e10s child processes

Using XCode to debug child processes created by an e10s-enabled browser is a little trickier than debugging a single-process browser, but it can be done. These directions were written using XCode 6.3.1

1. Complete all the steps above under "Creating the Project"
2. From the "Product" menu, ensure the scheme you created is selected under "Scheme", then choose "Scheme > Edit Scheme"
3. In the resulting popup, click "Duplicate Scheme"
4. Give the resulting scheme a more descriptive name than "Copy of Scheme"
5. Select "Run" on the left-hand side of the settings window, then select the "Info" tab. Set the Executable by clicking on the "Executable" drop-down, and selecting the plugin-container.app that is inside the app bundle of the copy of Firefox you want to debug.
6. On the same tab, under "Launch" select "Wait for executable to be launched"
7. On the "Arguments" tab, remove all arguments passed on launch.

Now you're ready to start debugging:

1. From the "Product" menu, ensure the scheme you created above is selected under "Scheme"
2. Click the "Run" button. The information area at the top of the window will show "Waiting for plugin-container to launch"
3. From a command line, run your build of Firefox. When that launches a child process (for example, when you start to load a webpage), XCode will notice and attach to that child process. You can then debug the child process like you would any other process.
4. When you are done debugging, click the "Stop" button and quit the instance of Firefox that you were debugging in the normal way.

For some help on using lldb see Debugging Mozilla with lldb.

Other resources

Apple has an extensive list of debugging tips and techniques.

Questions? Problems?

Try asking in our IRC channels #developers or #macdev.