I’m running KiCad v9.0.1 on Windows 11 22631 64-bit and spent last week routing a large amount of differential pairs. I made sure to save my progress regularly, but unfortunately since closing the file last week, it can no longer be opened.
Is there a way to downgrade my .kicad_pcb file so that it can open in version 8? v8 seemed to be a lot more stable and I’m hoping I can resume progress faster this way than waiting for v9 patches
I’ve had a play with manually editing the file for v8 syntax but with no success so far, if a pre-existing converter exists then that would be favourite
You are not able to restore it from one of the automatic backups? It is a good idea to set the automatic backup time to smaller time values and have enough number of backups.
I can absolutely restore from a previous v9 backup, however only prior to the large amount of tracking.
I’m happy to downgrade my v9 file with no tracking to v8, and spend a few days catching up, but I’ll not be re-tracking in v9, as I may not be able to open the file again
I agree with gmc. If KiCad can’t open it’s own files anymore for some reason, then it’s a serious bug and this should be reported on gitlab. This may also be both the quickest and easiest way to get to a working version again. Important bugs like this get priority and are often fixed within a few hours to a few days.
(You will have to make a custom build that includes the fix, or you may get a repaired project back from one of the KiCad developers).
Also note that bug reports can be made confidential on gitlab. I once had this happen to me. I was adding some comments to a bug report, and at some time the whole topic simply disappeared (for me). It probably was made confidential, (this was discussed previously in that topic) and I was not among the elite with access to that confidential topic.
Also: There are some things you can do yourself. Have any of the file sizes of the damaged project changed dramaticaly? If you open the files in a text editor, does it look like readable text? The damage to the file can be anything in between a single wrong character, to completely gabled nonsense.
It can also help if you attempt to open the schematic and PCB files from the command line. KiCad may spit out some info that could help with diagnosis.
what error are you getting when you say you can’t open it
pcbnew.exe launches and the “Loading PCB” dialogue box hangs at elapsed time 0:00:01
attempt to open the schematic and PCB files from the command line
Unfortunately when the command prompt sees pcbnew.exe open successfully it passes it off as a background task, meaning I can’t see any dialogue of pcbnew trying to load the file
The file as plaintext looks readable and the file size looks sensible. The rest of the project including eeschema open fine.
By the sounds of things you guys reckon raise a Gitlab ticket for quickest solution
I actually left the board loading on another machine for approx 30 mins. The board loaded, however when I selected the route track tool the application hung again.
I re-opened the board after another 30mins, copy and pasted all of the CAD data into a new .kicad_pcb file and success! The *newly created file quickly opens and all tools are fast and snappy.
I will raise a ticket… although I’ve not exactly got a lot of info to put into it
The most important thing for that kind of bug report would be to attach the project which shows the problem, unless you can explain in some other way how to reproduce it.
