The debug file and executable to be debug both reside in the same directory. The loading is automatically only if I made an explicit link within the executable to the debug file -- a step which I skipped. I suppose I could try that but I was hoping there was a way to specify it to gdb from within C::B.
There is a command to tell gdb to load symbols from another file from it's cli: symbol-file filename. The only problem is I can't find a way to get C::B to relay to gdb. The Debug->Send Command is initially greyed out. If I was debugging a console app, for example, starting a debugging session would just run through the executable with no chance to stop for inputting that command for the symbol file.