Having an issue were when editing libraries or footprints, kiCad crashes. I feel like there have been a few other causes but the one I have nailed down, is a crash that happens when I try to update a symbol. I have unchecked everything that updates other than the symbol itself. Apply and poof.
I had been ignoring the updates. But it looked like the patches might have fixed the issue.
However, after the update was applied I tried to update the symbol and poof. So it wasn’t patched.
Relaunched and updated the symbol without unchecking options.
I’d like to air on the side of if this was really a bug it would have been noticed by now and been super high priority patch. As it only causes crashes, any time a symbol is updated…
While typing this up I drilled down the exact circumstances that the crash happens.
- I had created a file for a project. Then populated it with every part, linked all the data and external files. Last I separated the parts into their sub circuits and draw up borders using the Rule Area Properties tool. While I have never seen any properties attached to this tool as there are in the PCB editor, it makes a good dividing border. I assumed I would learn how to fully use the properties later. After erasing everything in the file except for one part inside of one border. I could still cause the crash. Then if I move the symbol inside the border, still crashes, but if I move the symbol outside the border, no crash. Oddly if i just copy the border with the symbol to a new file to box up and share. The new file does not crash. But if I copy the entire contents of the original project it crashes. So I have of course, created a test file to share, copied the entire source contents and deleted everything except the border and the symbol. And yes of course, it crashes now on command. But then I exported the library and updated to support the location of the library and now the crash is fixed. Undo, Undo, Undo, Undo… The file is reverted and normaly this restores the cause of the crash. But this time not. So I closed the file without save but the symbol is exported all the same. The symbol as saved externally is not causing the bug. If the symbol does update there are no new issues. But the symbol is saved in the supplied zip archive for reference.
Crash test 2.zip (29.9 KB)
- Application: KiCad Schematic Editor x64 on x64
- Version: 9.0.6, release build
- Libraries:
- wxWidgets 3.2.8
- FreeType 2.13.3
- HarfBuzz 10.2.0
- FontConfig 2.15.0
- libcurl/8.13.0-DEV Schannel zlib/1.3.1
- Platform: Windows 10 (build 19045), 64-bit edition, 64 bit, Little endian, wxMSW
- Date: Oct 30 2025 19:36:12
- wxWidgets: 3.2.8 (wchar_t,wx containers)
- Boost: 1.88.0
- OCC: 7.9.1
- Curl: 8.13.0-DEV
- ngspice: 45.2
- Compiler: Visual C++ 1944 without C++ ABI
- KICAD_IPC_API=ON
- Locale:
- Lang: en_US
- Enc: UTF-8
- Num: 1,234.5
- Encoded кΩ丈: D0BACEA9E4B888 (sys), D0BACEA9E4B888 (utf8)
- Hardware:
- Processor Intel(R) Core™ i5-9400F CPU @ 2.90GHz 2.90 GHz
- Installed RAM 64.0 GB
- Storage 1.82 TB HDD, 3.64 TB HDD
- Graphics Card AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT (8 GB)