Debugging Godot: Fixing The Threads.map Error

Hey there, fellow game developers! Ever run into a pesky error message while debugging your Godot Engine projects? Specifically, have you seen the "Could not get threads: TypeError: threads.map is not a function" warning pop up in your VS Code debug console? Don't worry, you're not alone! It's a common issue that can be a bit confusing at first, but with a little understanding, we can get to the bottom of it. This article is all about helping you understand and potentially resolve this error so you can get back to creating awesome games. We'll delve into the context of the error, explore the likely causes, and provide some helpful insights based on the information available.

Understanding the Error: threads.map is not a function

Let's start by breaking down the error message itself. The key part is TypeError: threads.map is not a function. In JavaScript (and TypeScript, which is often used in VS Code extensions), the .map() method is used to iterate over the elements of an array and apply a function to each element, creating a new array with the results. If you try to call .map() on something that isn't an array (like null, undefined, or a plain object), you'll get this very error.

In the context of debugging, this error usually happens within the VS Code extension that's responsible for communicating with the debugger. In the case mentioned, this is the lldb-mi debugger extension. The extension is trying to get information about the threads that are running in your Godot game. It attempts to do this by calling .map() on the threads variable, expecting it to be an array of thread objects. However, for some reason, the threads variable is not an array. It could be null, undefined, or maybe even an object that doesn't have the .map() method.

Where does the error come from?

As the user correctly points out, the error seems to originate within the code-debug extension, specifically in the mi2.ts file. This file likely contains the code that handles interactions with the debugger using the MI (Machine Interface) protocol, which is a common way for debuggers to communicate with IDEs like VS Code. The specific lines of code in question are likely attempting to process thread information received from the debugger. When the debugger fails to provide the thread information in the expected array format, the .map() function will fail. This means the extension cannot correctly get the threads information. However, the debugger continues to work correctly, despite the error message.

The Launch Configuration and Debugging Setup

The user provided a launch.json configuration file, which is crucial for setting up the debugger in VS Code. Let's take a closer look at what's going on in there and see if we can derive anything useful from it:

{
	"version": "0.2.0",
	"configurations": [
		{
			"name": "Debug",
			"type": "lldb-mi",
			"request": "launch",
			"target": "./bin/godot.linuxbsd.editor.dev.x86_64.llvm",
			"arguments": "-e --path <...> --display-server wayland",
			"cwd": "${workspaceRoot}",
			"valuesFormatting": "parseText"
		}
	]
}

• version: Specifies the version of the launch configuration format.
• configurations: An array containing different debug configurations. In this case, there is one configuration named