Cant open footprint editor after using schematic editor

Hi all,
Having some problems, the problem is pretty much summed as the title describes.
After I open the schematic at all for any length of time then clicking the footprint editor from the main menu does nothing. I can see the button highlight as I click it but no window pops up indicating that something is loading. This is repeatable every time.

Weirdly if I open the schematic editor first then the schematic editor opens fine. Its not impacted by any of the other editors/tools.

I’ve tried opening Kicad in the terminal but there is no logs I can see. I have provided the version information below, let me know what other information I can provide!

Application: KiCad x86_64 on x86_64

Version: 9.0.4, release build

Libraries:
wxWidgets 3.2.8
FreeType 2.13.3
HarfBuzz 11.4.1
FontConfig 2.17.1
libcurl/8.15.0 OpenSSL/3.5.2 zlib/1.3.1 brotli/1.1.0 zstd/1.5.7 libidn2/2.3.7 libpsl/0.21.5 libssh2/1.11.1 nghttp2/1.66.0 nghttp3/1.11.0

Platform: Arch Linux, 64 bit, Little endian, wxGTK, Wayland, Hyprland, wayland
OpenGL: Mesa, NV136, 4.3 (Compatibility Profile) Mesa 25.2.1-arch1.4

Build Info:
Date: Aug 19 2025 23:08:36
wxWidgets: 3.2.8 (wchar_t,wx containers) GTK+ 3.24
Boost: 1.88.0
OCC: 7.9.1
Curl: 8.15.0
ngspice: 44.2
Compiler: GCC 15.2.1 with C++ ABI 1020

Build settings:
KICAD_USE_EGL=ON
KICAD_IPC_API=ON

Locale:
Lang: en_US
Enc: UTF-8
Num: 1,234.5
Encoded кΩ丈: D0BACEA9E4B888 (sys), D0BACEA9E4B888 (utf8)

I’m using 9.0.4 on Fedora 42. I cannot reproduce your issue. I open a project, then open the project’s schematic. Finally, I click the footprint editor button on the main window and it opens just fine.

In the past I remember an issue where I had to open the pcb editor before opening the footprint editor.

If you do that, what happens? I.e. open the schematic, then the pcb, then the footprint editor. Does that sequence work?

Hi Steve, Unfortunately no.

I just realised this actually does impact my workflow quite a bit. Since footprint assignments is done through the schematics window via the “assign footprints” button and I often preview the footprints before assigning them, the window does not work properly (I assume because most of the code is shared with the footprint editor)

Funnily enough, it does actually open I just cannot pan and selecting things or using tools (ruler) on the footprint is not visible to me until I zoom in or out and force the view to “refresh”.

I think I will create an issue on the kicad gitlab.

Maybe it’s Wayland+EGL+Hyprland+NVIDIA-specific?

Can you try running it like

GDK_BACKEND=x11 kicad

2 Likes

Also try

GALLIUM_DRIVER=llvmpipe LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE=1 kicad

If that works, then it’s something in Mesa NVIDIA driver interaction

And to check if it’s a Hyprland issue, try installing other desktop environments/compositors

This worked thank you so much.