KiCad 8 and 9 - New components placed far from pcb : how can I reset this?

Layout
1

I have a little trouble when placing new pcb components.
Each time I press F8 for updating, the new components are placed far from the pcb itself, and even outside of the page itself. In order to move them near the pcb, I need to zoom out significantly as per screenshot below.

placement
placement1456×952 81.3 KB

2

What is your page size ?

3

The page size is A4.

4

OK, I was going to suggest using a smaller page size . . . so that’s not an option. :astonished:

5

It has been a while, but I think the easiest way to get to your footprints is to change the sheet size to A3 or A2, drag your footprints to the correct area and change your sheet size back to A4.

I cannot remember exactly what caused this problem.

6

I have never ever noticed it, but now found how I can get this effect.
After closing Update dialog box I end with new footprints ‘connected’ to my mouse cursor. Then I position them whenever I want them and left click fixes them there. If instead of left click I press Esc than all new footprints are positioned around absolute 0,0 point.

1 Like
7

In my experience when new footprints (components is not the preferred term) are added they’re selected and can be deposited anywhere, so you just have to bring them near the board and drop them. You can use the Home key to fit the board to the screen. Maybe it helps if you have a board outline in edge cuts in case you don’t have one yet.

8

In my case the only way to bring the footprints near the pcb edges is to significantly zoom out so that they become visible, and then drag them toward the pcb.
I’ll try another workaround as suggested by Piotr: move the whole pcb toward the upper left.
What would be preferrable is either that the new footprints be placed near the drill origin, or at least to a custom place set somewhere in the settings. But having them placed outside of the page is not normal anyway.

9

I work near 0,0 and I suggested it few times since 2017.
But this tests I have done with simple PCB somewhere near A4 center (I suppose as I don’t have a frame around sheet).
For me it looks that some way when you close Update dialog box ‘your’ KiCad reacts like ‘my’ KiCad after closing dialog box and then pressing Esc key.
May be the reason is any setting connected with schematic and PCB cooperation.

If after update you can’t position footprints when you want it looks as a bug.

10

What is the exact procedure you use? For me, footprints are not placed , but they are just attached to the cursor.

I used:

  1. Duplicate a resistor on the schematic.
  2. [F8] to update PCB.
  3. Press **Update PCB button on the Update PCB dialog.
    1. Press the Close button on the Update PCB dialog.
  5. The resistor is now attached to the cursor, regardless of pan / zoom location.
  6. A mouse click puts the resistor on the canvas.

If I press [Esc] after step5 as piot suggests, the resistor is placed near (0, 0) instead

1 Like
11

What I described happens after updating using F8 and Clear : everything is attached to the cursor, but way out of scope, so impossible to place correctly unless you zoom out.

12

That does not make sense to me. You also see the footprints are attached to the cursor, but how can it be “out of scope” unless the cursor itself is off screen? (Which would be really weird).

13

Well that’s exactly what happens. The cursor with all items attached to it are very off screen. You can see it on my initial screenshot. I used to see the pcb on almost the entire editor area, until I zoomed out to show what happens.

14

I can not see whether those footprints are attached to the cursor or not from a screenshot. But it does look like it’s a bug.

I tried to force to reproduce something similar.

  1. [F8] update.
  2. Left mouse click to put the footprints somewhere.
  3. Pan zoom, so the (still selected! ) parts are off screen.
  4. press m to move the selection.

In this 4th step, the selection of footprints becomes attached to the mouse cursor again, and my mouse cursor is still on screen. This looks like it’s a reasonable workaround, but this bug should probably be reported on gitlab too. Or maybe wait until someone else can give some sort of confirmation and/or more info.

15

I’ll open a ticket and share my project once I’m back so that the problem can be reproduced.

2 Likes