Is this a bug with EESchema in 5.1.5? Symbol copy of copy of copy

Software
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Last night I updated to version 5.1.5 under Windows 10. I believe I was using 5.1.4 (had not skipped a version) previously. Full new version information at the end of this post.

This morning I am working on a schematic diagram, and wanted to place a diode.

I began browsing my own library of diodes from the schematic editor. I saw many illegitimate “copies”, and “copies of copies”, and “copies of copies of copies” of many of the parts in my diodes library. The other odd thing is that these unintended “copies” were all 2-diode combinations (similar to BAV99, BAV70, and BAW56) but were related to other diodes such as STPS1L30U as shown in the screen shot. Of course I had indeed originally created those BAV99, BAV70, and BAW56. But these should not be related to STPS1L30U or the other parts which suffered this error. I never made anything called “copy of copy” etc.

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I am 90% certain that this is new after my version update.

So then I went to project manager and the symbols editor to delete these unwanted “copy of copy” etc. symbols. After I had deleted a couple of them, I found that they had all been deleted, including my BAV99, BAV70, and BAW56 which of course I wanted to keep. So at that point I close symbol editor without saving my changes.

What is going on? Is this all my fault or is this a bug which I should report?

This seems like it may be related to Symbol Library Editor Changes

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Dec 6

20d ago

stambaughw

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Application: KiCad
Version: (5.1.5)-3, release build
Libraries:
wxWidgets 3.0.4
libcurl/7.66.0 OpenSSL/1.1.1d (Schannel) zlib/1.2.11 brotli/1.0.7 libidn2/2.2.0 libpsl/0.21.0 (+libidn2/2.1.1) nghttp2/1.39.2
Platform: Windows 8 (build 9200), 64-bit edition, 64 bit, Little endian, wxMSW
Build Info:
wxWidgets: 3.0.4 (wchar_t,wx containers,compatible with 2.8)
Boost: 1.71.0
OpenCASCADE Community Edition: 6.9.1
Curl: 7.66.0
Compiler: GCC 9.2.0 with C++ ABI 1013

Build settings:
USE_WX_GRAPHICS_CONTEXT=OFF
USE_WX_OVERLAY=OFF
KICAD_SCRIPTING=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_MODULES=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_PYTHON3=OFF
KICAD_SCRIPTING_WXPYTHON=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_WXPYTHON_PHOENIX=OFF
KICAD_SCRIPTING_ACTION_MENU=ON
BUILD_GITHUB_PLUGIN=ON
KICAD_USE_OCE=ON
KICAD_USE_OCC=OFF
KICAD_SPICE=ON

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That change will not have affected the 5.1.5 release (it is for v6), and was also done in the development branch after 5.1.5 was released.

Do you see any symbols with those names inside the actual library files on your hard drive?

1 Like
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Thanks. Looking now; yes I do. They are aliases. I have attached a .zip of my .dcm, .lib, and .bck files. I could manually edit the .lib file but I previously found that manually editing these gets me into trouble.

What do you think I might have done wrong…if I did?

.Bobs Diodes saved 12-01-2019a.zip (2.1 KB)

After sending the above, I realized that the .zip file gave me a backup so I tried removing those alias lines from the .lib file. Maybe that worked OK. But that is not the way I ought to use Kicad and I am curious as to what went wrong…?

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When you duplicate a symbol, it creates a new symbol called name_copy. But it also does that for every alias of the original, so you get name_alias_copy.

If you were then to copy the copy you get name_alias_copy_copy… and so on.

2 Likes
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OK…Just to help me understand. As I look at it now, I have a confusing mix of symbols with some listed in bold and some in italic.

LL101C, MBRX140, STPS1L30U are aliases of Schottky_Diode_2_Term but it are bold italic with an asterisk.

TZM5242B is an alias of Zener_Diode but it is only italic. Not bold and no asterisk.
LL4148 is an alias of PN_Diode but it is only italic. Not bold and no asterisk.

Zener_Diode is a parent type but it is not bold, not italic and no asterisk

Schottky_Diode_2_Term is a parent type but it IS bold, not italic, and has an asterisk

This gets confusing as heck…

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italic = alias

bold + * means changes made but not saved

2 Likes
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Yup OK…Thanks a lot. Somehow that is not so intuitive but I should be able to learn it after it becomes obsolete in 6.0. :frowning:

So now I want to take my schottky diode symbol and copy it to make a few dual: BAT54S, BAT54C, and BAT54A. I am not so fond of the standard library symbols because they seem large. I ought to be able to start with a copy to avoid drawing a new basic schottky diode symbol. OK, it looks like I get all of these aliases in my copy; now I need to delete the aliases. Again not difficult but not intuitive…

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I would create a generic symbol with no aliases, then copy that to make new ones.

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So OK I guess I should either do that and have these parent symbols with no aliases, or else remember to delete or edit all of the aliases when I copy a parent symbol.

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I have noticed (in some time from 5.1.2 to 5.1.4 I think) that some changes in elements list were not visible till reopening the library editor (I reported it but not remember when it was). So such copies of aliases could be not visible if you didn’t reopen the library editor. And that way could be not noticed by you.

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Thanks, Piotr
So…just to confirm that now that I know what to do, there is not much of a problem here. But my modus operandi with KiCad has not changed so much, and the original issue repeated yesterday. So I cannot be certain but I am 80% sure that this is behaving differently in 5.1.5 than it did in 5.1.4 or earlier. I never remember seeing those “copy of copy” of the aliases cropping up when I did “Save As” of a parent symbol, and I am pretty sure that it is not because I am doing something very differently.

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I have never seen any “copy of copy” but I have finished my library actions while working with 5.1.4.

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