After upgrade to Kicad 7 all system libraries are lost

Software
11

I suppose the libraries are installed. I find them here:
/Applications/KiCad/KiCad.app/Contents/SharedSupport/symbols
After re-starting KiCad, the symbol library manager shows: (sorry I did not know, I can copy and paste bitmaps)

image
image1015×674 116 KB

Even though, I do not use old settings, the Libraries are set to wrong path (but KICAD7_SYMBOL_DIR is ok) and the wrong format

Well, I reset one library manually and did the following workaraound:

  • open /Users/wolfgangdomroese/Library/Preferences/kicad/7.0/sym-lib-table with editor
  • replace “KICAD_SYMBOL_DIR” by “KICAD7_SYMBOL_DIR”
  • replace “.lib” by “.kicad_sym”
  • replace “Legacy” by “KiCad”

NOW IT WORKS except that some few libraries do not exist. I will delete them. But there may be some libraries missing, that are new in 7.0?

12

Application: KiCad Schematic Editor arm64 on arm64

Version: (7.0.0-0), release build

Libraries:
wxWidgets 3.2.1
FreeType 2.12.1
HarfBuzz 5.3.1
FontConfig 2.14.0
libcurl/7.86.0 SecureTransport (LibreSSL/3.3.6) zlib/1.2.11 nghttp2/1.47.0

Platform: macOS Ventura Version 13.2.1 (Build 22D68), 64 bit, Little endian, wxMac

Build Info:
Date: Feb 12 2023 10:56:31
wxWidgets: 3.2.1 (wchar_t,wx containers)
Boost: 1.80.0
OCC: 7.6.3
Curl: 7.77.0
ngspice: 38
Compiler: Clang 13.0.0 with C++ ABI 1002

Build settings:
KICAD_SPICE=ON

13

This is totally weird because .lib is a v5 format. It looks like somehow you got a v5 table.

I wonder if the migration process starts from v5 config in preference to v6 config if found.

14

From your screenshots, the libraries all use the $(KiCAD_SYMBOL_DIR) path, but in the Path Substitution that environment variable points to nothing, so it can never find those libraries.

Those libraries are also from some old KiCad version and in “Legacy” format.

I don’t really know why this happened on your system or how to update to newer libraries.

15

The update to KiCad V7 appears to be a bit bumpy.
My KiCad V7 installation is now dated 2023-02-21, and I think I got an update yesterday without the version number changing. I certainly had KiCad V7.0.0 before yesterday.

Renaming the configuration directory should have cleared links to those old libraries, especially when you combine it with “Start with default settings” as you did. So I am a bit puzzled for the reason it does not work for you.

Application: KiCad x86_64 on x86_64

Version: 7.0.0-da2b9df05c~163~ubuntu20.04.1, release build

Libraries:
	wxWidgets 3.2.1
	FreeType 2.10.1
	HarfBuzz 6.0.0
	FontConfig 2.13.1
	libcurl/7.68.0 OpenSSL/1.1.1f zlib/1.2.11 brotli/1.0.7 libidn2/2.2.0 libpsl/0.21.0 (+libidn2/2.2.0) libssh/0.9.3/openssl/zlib nghttp2/1.40.0 librtmp/2.3

Platform: Linux Mint 20.3, 64 bit, Little endian, wxGTK, xfce, x11

Build Info:
	Date: Feb 21 2023 12:56:05
	wxWidgets: 3.2.1 (wchar_t,wx containers) GTK+ 3.24
	Boost: 1.71.0
	OCC: 7.5.2
	Curl: 7.87.0
	ngspice: 38
	Compiler: GCC 9.4.0 with C++ ABI 1013

Build settings:
	KICAD_SPICE=ON
16

The symbol-libraries do work now! But with footprints, I can not solve the problem the same way.
It shows the same problem:

image
image1015×674 107 KB

But I am not able to select the new foot-print library manually - to see, how it must look! In file-Selector I cannot open “/Applications/KiCad/KiCad.app” as I could when selecting symbol-library.

What to do now?

17

I replaced KISYMOD by KICAD7FOOTPRINT_DIR. It works.

18

I’m glad it works for you now, but it’s not a “neat” solution to keep on using libraries that are several KiCad versions behind. You could verify whether recent libraries are actually present on your system, and try to make use of them.

Normally KiCad should do this by itself, for example have you recently seen the dialog below:
image

When you confirm this (And the other one, posted earlier for the schematic symbols) should configure KiCad to use the libraries for the same version as KiCad itself.

It may be some kind of packaging problem for your OS, and I can’t help with that.

19

No - I’ve not seen this for footprints.
In fact it’s a workaround, what I did. I should re-install all libraries.
Bu how?

20

I had to repair my installation after upgrade to 7.0 (see here: After upgrade to Kicad 7 all system libraries are lost).

I had to edit sym-lib- and ft-lib-table manually. But in fact, table and libraries in installation directory do not show the same. I had to delete some entries and some other will be missing.

How can I renew / recreate the two -table files to let them correspond to available libraries?

21

Just delete or rename those files and when you start the application it will go through the first run initialisation and you should accept the default, which is to use the default system libraries. You’ll have to re-add any personal libraries you had.

22

Yes, that is what I wrote in that other thread 3 days ago.
So now I’m a bit confused about what WolfgangDomroese has and what he wants.

23

Sorry - seems I do not describe the problem correctly. I

  • rename the folder /Users/wolfgangdomroese/Library/Preferences/kicad/7.0 to /7.0_modified
  • startKiCad it shows
    image
  • open a project and start Schematic Editor it shows
    image
  • no Library available. Looking at Symbol Libraries Manager it shows this very old list:
    image
    image1012×677 112 KB
  • The only way to get KiCad work ist to maualy edit the /Users/wolfgangdomroese/Library/Preferences/kicad/7.0/sym-lib-table
    BUT the entries in this list do not correspond to the symbol libraries available in the package.
    Therefore I want to recreate…
24

BTW:

  • I tried to only rename sym-table-list in directory 7.0
  • I renamed old config-folders in same directora:
    image

The problem still remains. I do not know, where this damned old sym-table-list must be deleted…

25

Can you verify (and report) whether the symbol an footprint libraries themselves for KiCad V7 are installed at all?

I am not sure what KiCad does, when the libraries for the same version are not installed. It may attempt to use older libraries if it can see those. (But it seems unlikely). Another possibility is some kind of error with the packaging, but then we would probably have more complaints from people with your OS.

26

Well, the libraries are installed as I showed in the thread mentioned above. Thats why I get it to work maunualy with

  • replace “KICAD_SYMBOL_DIR” by “KICAD7_SYMBOL_DIR” and replacing the type.
    BUT the list does not correspond to the libraries in the package.
    Some libraries in the package are not in the list (I do not know how many) and some libraries in the list are not in the package.
27

I’m a bit over my limit here. When threads get longer and have too many details I can’t keep it organized in my head anymore.

28

It seems you had v5.1 installed at some point but it was not completely removed. There are probably template files for the two tables which are still on your system. Search for the filenames sym-lib-table and fp-lib-table anywhere on your filesystem which have the old format and rename or delete them.

Then rename or delete the entire preferences directory /Users/wolfgangdomroese/Library/Preferences/kicad, then reinstall v7.0 from package.

1 Like
29

Oh -thanks! I got it. But for all, who get the same problems:
It’s not an old sym-lib-table. There was no one else on the system. I had to delete all library files in Library->ApplicationSupport/Kicad and user/Library/ApplicationSupport/Kicad.

I don’t know why the hell KiCad was looking for those files…

1 Like
30

Well I am only superficially acquainted with the Apple packages so hopefully the packager can explain what happened and why you had the old format libraries.

If you don’t mind I would like to merge this thread with the original one so that it becomes a continuous story.