Breakpoint broken and DC's not easily available

My x86 code started having problems so I put a breakpoint but the debugger in MSVS 2013 just seemed to ignore it. I was building in Debug X86 mode and my code fragment looks like:

!======================================
      case (WM_PAINT)
!======================================
   if (message == WM_PAINT) Then
      type *, 'same here in case -- message = ', message
   end if
         if (codex == 10) Then
            codex = 0
            Call SetupMyDlg(.FALSE., codex)
            codex = 1
         End If
         Call MyHeaderOut()
         hDC = BeginPaint(ghWndMain, lp)
         if (hDC == NULL) Then
            hDC = GetDC(ghWndMain)
            if (hDC == NULL) Then
               bret = Beep( 950, 2400)
               bret = Beep( 250, 600)
               bret = Beep( 950, 2400)
               type *, 'Could not get a hDC', rectp
               return
            End If
         End If

It turned out that under certain options, I wasn't able to get a DC (3 tones beeped), but under all the other, it got a DC with no problems. All 5 options (gMyOption) come through OK except for bMyOption = 1. All the other seem to work OK. Any suggestions on (1) why debugger will not break and (2) why DC's have avbailability issues?

Thanks,

Brooks Van Horn