I know this question has been asked before, but I don’t see it when I search. Heck, I may have asked the question, but I am old and forgetful… 🙁 I am seeing that the code is entering vAssertCalled. How do I find how it got there? It is VERY intermittent, so it is hard to recreate. I look at pcFile and see ‘.’. uLine is 0x000498.
I am using a PIC32, with MPLAB X IDE v2.15, FreeRTOS V8.0.1. there has to be a trick that i dont know…. thanks!!!

If you don’t have much flash space available you can define configASSERT() very simply:

#define configASSERT( x ) if( ( x ) == pdFALSE ) { taskDISABLE_INTERRUPTS(); for( ;; ); }

That will stop everything and make you processor sit in an infinite loop. configASSERT() is a macro, so if you break on the debugger to see which line is executing you will see exactly which assert you are in – and in the debugger will also be able to inspect the parameters to see how you got there. If you have more memory available you can have a more traditional assert() definition:

#define configASSERT( x ) if( ( x ) == 0 ) vAssertCalled( __LINE__, __FILE__ )

which passes the line number and file name of the offending assert into a function. You have to provide the function yourself, something like this:

void vAssertCalled( unsigned long ulLine, const char * const pcFileName )
{
static portBASE_TYPE xPrinted = pdFALSE;
volatile uint32_t ulSetToNonZeroInDebuggerToContinue = 0;

    /* Parameters are not used. */
    ( void ) ulLine;
    ( void ) pcFileName;

    taskENTER_CRITICAL();
    {
        /* You can step out of this function to debug the assertion by using
        the debugger to set ulSetToNonZeroInDebuggerToContinue to a non-zero
        value. */
        while( ulSetToNonZeroInDebuggerToContinue == 0 )
        {
        }
    }
    taskEXIT_CRITICAL();
}

You may also want to update to a later version of FreeRTOS – I think there were some changes made to the asserts for the PIC32 (?). It should just be a drop in replacement, so just copy the newer files over the older files (take a backup of the older ones first, naturally). Regards.

thanks for the quick reply. I have the following in FreeRTOSConfig.h /* Prevent C specific syntax being included in assembly files. */

ifndef __LANGUAGE_ASSEMBLY

void vAssertCalled( const char *pcFileName, unsigned long ulLine );
#define configASSERT( x ) if( ( x ) == 0 ) vAssertCalled( __FILE__, __LINE__ )

endif

then, in my main.c i have void vAssertCalled( const char * pcFile, unsigned long ulLine ) { volatile unsigned long ul = 0;

( void ) pcFile;
( void ) ulLine;

__asm volatile( "di" );
{
    /* Set ul to a non-zero value using the debugger to step out of this
    function. */
    while( ul == 0 )
    {
        portNOP();
    }
}
__asm volatile( "ei" );

} so, my debugger is stopped at volatile unsigned long ul = 0; attached is a screenshot that shows the call stack. Basically, there is no stack for me to unwind… If I had something to unwind, I could find the culprit…. thanks!!!

Inside the function you have the file name and the line number in the file so that is telling you which assert was the culprit. If the parameters are optimised away then declare some global volatile variables and assign the parameters to them. Alternatively use the debugger to manually set ul to a value other than zero to break out of the loop – then step out of the function to see where you are.

thanks! that did it. should have thought of that before!!! I stepped out and found my culprit. 🙂