'debugger' called from the right-hand side of IDE panel?

Hi Everyone,
Trying to debug using debugger. But if I run the function from the right-hand IDE side, it does nothing. While if testDebugger() is called then from the left-hand IDE side, it works. Can I make it working in both cases? Thanks!

function testDebugger() {debugger;}

testDebugger(); //does nothing

Sun 2021.03.14

It is likely that there is a small amount of delay during the upload that Espruino requires to unpack and manage memory, and the debugger becomes initialized after the testDebugger() function call.

By placing a small delay within your snippet, it is possible to launch immediately after the upload is complete.

function testDebugger() {
  debugger;
}

intervalID = setInterval( function (){

    testDebugger();
    
  }, 1500);

Edit:
In my haste to reveal a working solution, I actually needed to test some more. The use of
L5 timeoutID = setTimeout( function (){ as pointed out in post #3 is a better choice to make just one and only one call to invoke the debugger

Result:

>
        debugger;
        ^
debug>

Hi! I think this might be because you're uploading to RAM: http://www.espruino.com/Saving

Basically, when you upload to RAM, code is executed as it is uploaded. If you have a debugger statement in your code then Espruino would break out into the debugger before all the code had finished uploading, so it gets ignored.

As @Robin says, if you execute the code after a delay with something like setTimeout(testDebugger,1000); then it'll execute after the upload has finished and you should enter the debugger just fine.

Great, many thanks, it works! )