KiCad 5.1.5 crashes only with a specific project

Been having a very strange issue. I have the most recent stable version of Kicad installed on a Macbook Pro running macOS Catalina 10.15.4. Usually, KiCad works fine. For this one project, each time I try to open pcbnew the program crashes. This is what the crash report looks like. Any help in resolving this would be appreciated! Thanks.

Kicad version details are as follows:

Application: KiCad
Version: (5.1.5-0-10_14), release build
Libraries:
    wxWidgets 3.0.4
    libcurl/7.64.1 SecureTransport (LibreSSL/2.8.3) zlib/1.2.11 nghttp2/1.39.2
Platform: Mac OS X (Darwin 19.4.0 x86_64), 64 bit, Little endian, wxMac
Build Info:
    wxWidgets: 3.0.4 (wchar_t,STL containers,compatible with 2.8)
    Boost: 1.69.0
    OpenCASCADE Community Edition: 6.9.1
    Curl: 7.54.0
    Compiler: Clang 9.0.0 with C++ ABI 1002

Build settings:
    USE_WX_GRAPHICS_CONTEXT=ON
    USE_WX_OVERLAY=ON
    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

Is it possible that you share your *.kicad_pcb file here?
I could check it on both Win and Mac installs.

Could you also check it on the 5.1.6-rc build:
https://kicad-downloads.s3.cern.ch/osx/testing/5.1/kicad-5.1-unified-20200507-024418-268f85023.dmg

Every crash scenario is treated very seriously by KiCad’s developers.

Yes, sure! Attached here is the entire project. It uses a few custom footprints. I’ve included them as well with the project files.

18650-charger-revA.zip (303.6 KB)

Would I have to uninstall the existing 5.1.5 version for this to work?

At least in windows, it is possible to run different versions in parallel, i don’t know about MacOS though.

Looks like that is not possible in macOS. It is asking me to replace the same files as 5.1.5.

Just checked it on latest 5.1.6-RC and PCBNew crashes.
Time to report on Gitlab.

EDIT: Reported here:

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I wonder what is different with that one project. It works fine for other projects.

To me the file structure itself seems totally legit, but the debug log will bring us the answer.
Thank you for sharing your project, such test cases that do give reproducible issues are very valuable for improving oveall quality of KiCad.

As a fyi, it also crashes on Ubuntu version.

Version: 5.1.5+dfsg1-2build2, release build

Happy to help! I’ve been using Kicad since 2013 and I really appreciate the hard work you guys are putting in!

P.S: Just tested it on a Windows 10 machine running 5.1.5 and it crashed there too.

I’m not the dev so don’t thank me :wink: But yes there are lot of people that put many efforts to make KiCad what it is today and they all deserve proper recognition for their work.

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Edit the 18650-charger-revA.kicad_PCB file with a text editor. Towards the end of the file there are 4 zones defined, however, one of them has no polygon definitions (don’t ask me why). Remove that zone definition specifically this part:

  (zone (net 1) (net_name GND) (layer B.Cu) (tstamp 0) (hatch edge 0.508)
    (connect_pads yes (clearance 0.254))
    (min_thickness 0.254)
    (fill (arc_segments 32) (thermal_gap 0.508) (thermal_bridge_width 0.508))
  )

You should now be able to open the board file without issue.

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Seems the issue have been fixed on a spot. A fix is already commited to 5.1.6-rc and 5.99 so tomorrow we can expect fixed Jenkis build.

2 Likes

Wow! I would’ve never guessed to look here. Thank you for solving this :+1:

Just tested latest 5.1.6-RC1, the issue is fixed and I can open the affected project without crash.

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