Introduction

This technical note gives general suggestions on troubleshooting the IDE when it isn’t responding as expected. It also lists some situations where this advice is helpful.

Discussion

Inconsistent or corrupt project files can produce symptoms as follows.

• The IAR Embedded Workbench no longer starts after an abnormal termination (for example after a power outage).
• Go to definition does not go there.
• Source browser information is not available/can’t be generated
• Debugging does not work as expected

Are any of these descriptions close to the current situation for your project? If so, please read below about the suggested actions.

Suggested steps:

1. Ensure no instance of IAR Embedded Workbench is open.
2. Make a backup of important & relevant parts of your project.
   - Perhaps by copying to a new location, or to a zip-file
   - Depending on your situation it may be most convenient to copy all of it.
3. Remove all files in:
   - object code folder(s) such as $PROJ_DIR$\Debug\Obj
   - settings folder(s) like $PROJ_DIR$\settings and $WS_DIR$\settings
   - temporary folder(s) %Temp% or C:\Users\<My User Name>\AppData\Local\Temp
4. Reboot the computer
5. Try starting the IAR Embedded Workbench again.

From the documentation:

At the menu Help > IDE Project Management and Building Guide, in the chapter File types (below the table) is there this description:

'...When you run the IDE, some files are created and located in dedicated directories under your project directory, by default $PROJ_DIR$\Debug, $PROJ_DIR$\Release, $PROJ_DIR$\settings. None of these directories or files affect the execution of the IDE, which means you can safely remove them if required...'

Conclusion

The suggested steps have helped in a number of situations where project files are inconsistent or corrupt.

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