Debugging a Project Server Workflow in Visual Studio 2010

The How to: Install and Test a Project Server Workflow article in the Project 2010 SDK needs information about how to debug a workflow. Because Visual Studio 2010 can install a workflow solution on the local Project Server computer during development and testing, you can use Visual Studio to attach to a process that the workflow uses.

After you deploy the workflow project in Visual Studio, on the Debug menu, click Attach to Process. In the Attach to Process dialog box, check Show processes from all users and Show processes in all sessions.

Following are considerations to choose the correct process:

• If the workflow creates a project or does another operation that uses one of the Queue methods in the PSI (for example QueueCreateProject), the process uses the Project Server Queue Service. In the Attach to Process dialog box, click the Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.Queuing.exe processes.
  
  Note:   There is a queue process for the application server and for each Project Web App instance. You can attach to all the queue processes, or check the ULS log for the ID of the queue process, and then convert that into a decimal value. For example, if the Microsoft.Office.Project.Server ID is 0x0FFC in the ULS log, the Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.Queuing.exe process ID is 4092.
• When you submit or restart the workflow, the workflow runs in a w3wp process. Click one or more of the w3wp.exe processes . You can sometimes determine which w3wp process is involved, and find the process ID as in the previous note. Otherwise, attach to all of the w3wp processes.
• If the workflow uses an approval process that includes many approvers, it might run under the SharePoint timer process. Click the OWSTIMER.EXE process . This is not common.

When you attach to the correct process, a breakpoint remains as a solid red dot in the left of the code pane. If you do not attach to the correct process, the breakpoint turns into a hollow red circle with yellow caution indicator, and the tooltip for the breakpoint states, “The breakpoint will not currently be hit. No symbols have been loaded for this document.”

When you click Attach, Visual Studio is ready to catch a breakpoint that you set in the workflow code.