gdb: "No symbol table is loaded"

First of all, what you have is a fully compiled program, not an object file, so drop the .o extension. Now, pay attention to what the error message says, it tells you exactly how to fix your problem: "No symbol table is loaded. Use the "file" command."

(gdb) exec-file test
(gdb) b 2
No symbol table is loaded.  Use the "file" command.
(gdb) file test
Reading symbols from /home/user/test/test...done.
(gdb) b 2
Breakpoint 1 at 0x80483ea: file test.c, line 2.
(gdb) 

Or just pass the program on the command line.

$ gdb test
GNU gdb (GDB) 7.4
Copyright (C) 2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>
[...]
Reading symbols from /home/user/test/test...done.
(gdb) b 2
Breakpoint 1 at 0x80483ea: file test.c, line 2.
(gdb) 

I met this issue this morning because I used the same executable in DIFFERENT OSes: after compiling my program with gcc -ggdb -Wall test.c -o test in my Mac(10.15.2), I ran gdb with the executable in Ubuntu(16.04) in my VirtualBox.

Fix: recompile with the same command under Ubuntu, then you should be good.

I have the same problem and I followed this Post, it solved my problem.

Follow the following 2 steps:

1. Make sure the optimization level is -O0
2. Add -ggdb flag when compiling your program

Good luck!

You have to add extra parameter -g, which generates source level debug information. It will look like:

gcc -g prog.c

After that you can use gdb in common way.