Use symbol servers when debugging on Windows

When debugging, sometimes the library symbols are not available on your local machine. In this case, you can use symbol servers.

The symbol server is a file server that stores your debug symbols centrally, on a server, rather than on each developer’s machine. Then, you can point your debugger to the symbol server to resolve symbol names. Everyone can share the same server.

In CLion on Windows, you can point the debugger to the symbol server of your choice in Settings | Build, Execution, Deployment | Debugger | Symbol Servers:

CLion lets you configure symbol servers (or indexed storages) and non-indexed shared folders separately. If you need to add a public Microsoft symbol server, click the corresponding link.

When configured for the first time, the download is triggered on the debugger session start. When the symbols are downloaded, library symbols will be correctly resolved. For example, frames from Windows system libraries will be shown.

Symbol server: OFF	Symbol server: ON

The Enable symbol servers support setting allows a debugger in CLion to use any downloaded symbols cache locally. The directory of this cache is configurable in the settings.