You would think that the xml file would match the netlist file exactly. However, they are totally different. What’s funny is that the error I see in pcbnew matches what is in the xml file, not the netlist file. Why is that? Also, the date in the xml file which I just generated is 05/22/2016. The date in the netlist file is 08/11/2016.
Terry
Ignore this last comment. I was looking at an old xml file.
I finally got it fixed by making the pcbnew board look exactly like the schematic. Doing that fixed the problem. Now everything matches perfectly.
Can you explain what you mean by making the board look exactly like the schematic? I am having the same problem, except pcbnew says it can’t find 12 pads for a 2 pad SMT inductor. I followed the thread and tried everything suggested, with no luck.
When you read the netlist in PCBNew it displays in the dialog the path to the file it is going to read. Make sure this is the same as the file you are writing to in Eeschema.
No, that did not work either. The path is the same, and the file name is the same, with different extension. Still have tons of errors of the same type. They are all for my inductors for some reason maybe if I can figure that out I’ll know why. It seems PCBNEW is looking for way more pads than there are connections.
I tried deleting my Kicad_pcb file and the cache file and starting over- same set of errors. I have inspected the files using Notepad++, and cannot see anything out of the ordinary with respect to the components generating the errors.
As you are too new here to post attachments, can you make a trivial test project with just one of the inductors and a resistor with wires between the two parts, annotate and cut and paste the netlist here.
I suspect you have a symbol with pad 12 instead of pad 2
Yes, I think I am getting to the bottom of it. I copied the inductor (unfortunately) from another symbol that had invisible pins. There was text on top of them, and it made it difficult to see them (I am working on a laptop). Once I deleted them and regenerated the netlist etc., most of my errors vanished! I have a few left, but I think I should be able to track them down. Thanks for the patience! So: look for invisible pins on the schematic symbol that are covered up by something else, or are off the page.
Then the paths are not the same. They should both be accessing the same file, usually with the .net extension.
What files are you inspecting, there should only be one.
Yes, indeed that is correct. The problems were of my own making, not looking for invisible pins with enough diligence. All seems to be well now, I get no errors when reading the netlist into PcbNew. Again thanks for all the pointers, they prompted me to look at a lot of things until I found the root cause, and I understand a lot more about Kicad now as well.