I recently upgraded both my OS and KiCAD, as my old KiCAD (7) didn’t have the required simulator features I needed to run a simulation on my circuit.
I now have Ubuntu 24.04.02 and KiCAD 9.02 : release build.
After doing a variable number of simulations, my PC simply locks. Sometimes it suddenly goes really sluggish and then locks a few minutes later, and sometimes it just locks straight up.
I know changing both the OS and KiCAD simultaneously is a bad thing (the rule I normally stick to: change only one thing at once). Unfortunately my old OS (ubuntu 20.04) didn’t support KiCAD 9 out-of-the-box and I do not have the skills to compile or whatever it would take me above simply looking in the ubuntu software store… so I had to upgrade.
To try and get a grip on the problem I’ve done multiple other tasks with my PC without starting KiCAD, and it works flawlessly for days. If I load up KiCAD, even without anything else running, start playing with the simulator, I can pretty much guarantee a lockup within the hour (and usually it is less).
I don’t know how to diagnose this problem (perhaps it is a memory leak in the spice module?), and my current work-around is to save about every minute and just be prepared to hit the power button regularly.
Anyone else experiencing KiCAD 9.02 issues? Especially with the simulator?
At this stage I’ve only used KiCAD 9 Schematic & Simulator… my design is still WAY too young to think about layout.
Thanks,
MM