Debug SharePoint 2010 Feature Event Receiver Remotely

Question

I'm attempting to debug a SharePoint 2010 event receiver remotely and I'm running into a strange scenario. I'm able to deploy the code via PowerShell to the remote server and view the remote server's processes in Visual Studio.

I've attached to multiple w3wp processes with no luck. The strange thing is when I view the modules I see that my assembly is attached to w3wp processes but not the ones associated with my Web Application. It is also attached to the OWSTimer processes.

Questions
Why would an assembly not be attached to you web application's process but attach to other w3wp processes?

Do feature event receivers run in the w3wp worker process?

Answer 1

Yes they run under the w3wp worker process, you have to attach to OWSTIMER.EXE for debugging.

Check this blog, he talked about the how to debug the event received.

Debugging Event Receivers in SharePoint 2010

Key steps:

now my process works like this:

• Compile
• Deploy
• net stop sptimerv4
• net start sptimerv4
• Run my code and hit my breakpoint

I'm actually adding the net stop and net start commands as post-build steps to my solution, so it will all work seamlessly moving forward.

also good blog: http://reyazuddinkhan2.blogspot.com/2013/04/debug-feature-receiver-in-vs-2010.html