Why do we stop watchdog timer on MSP430 ?

[Nhan95]

I see that many programs for MSP430 microcontroller, they usually stop the watchdog timer first:
WDTCTL = WDTPW | WDTHOLD; // Stop watchdog timer
What's watchdog timer and why do have to do that ? Does other MCU have watchdog timer

[nctnico]

IIRC this has something to do with people not wanting to have the watchdog enabled by default. The damn thing is on by default and set to a very short interval which causes trouble with initialisation code (zeroing the memory and copying initialised variables into RAM).

[c4757p]

The purpose of a watchdog timer is to forcibly reset your microcontroller if your code gets stuck for some reason. It has a timeout period, and if you don't poke it during that period, it resets you. You're supposed to stick that poke somewhere in your main loop, preferably with some sanity checks so you only poke it if everything is good.

Yes, most microcontrollers have one, but MSP430 is somewhat unique in that it starts up with it enabled by default.