Kicad generated a schematic editor error while importing an Eagle schematic

Software
1

While attempting to import an non-Kicad schematic generated by Eagle, I received a schematic editor error as follows:

image

The original file came from Adafruit’s github for one of their hardware products. I successfully opened the schematic with Eagle, made a change, saved the file to ensure it was produced by the Eagle version as indicated, below. Upon attempting to “Import/Non-Kicad Schematic…” I received the above error. I tried this sequence with multiple Eagle files from Adafruit with the same result. If need be, I can post the actual Eagle file as it’s in the public domain.

Context
Generating software: Eagle v9.6.2
Kicad software: v8.0.3
Computing environment: iMac M1, MacOS v14.5

2

Just posting a link would have been plenty.

I cloned:

After that, both the schematic and the PCB imported in KiCad.

I also managed to crash KiCad a few times just after the import of the PCB. I don’t know what’s going on here, but I may put some more time into that.

More general:
I don’t particularly like these PCB’s for an HD44780 based around an I2C I/O expander. You need a lot of I2C traffic to get these things going, while the price difference between an I/O expander and a uC is negligible. With an uC you can also add keyboard multiplexing and and some other typical “front panel” functions, and then control the whole front panel of a project with either I2C or SPI,

3

Update. I tried a bunch of times but KiCad crashes a lot, and after a bit of fiddling and it does not crash, then the final result is the same error message that you get.

My workflow as sort of:

  1. Clone the project from github.
  2. Create a KiCad project.
  3. Import the schematic (This looks OK).
  4. Import the PCB (This also looks OK).
  5. Save files and exit: KiCad is slow, often crashes.
  6. Restart KiCad, attempt to open the schematic. KiCad responds with:
    image
    image697×218 21 KB

    and then closes the schematic editor.

KiCad version used:

Application: KiCad x86_64 on x86_64

Version: 8.0.3-8.0.3-0~ubuntu20.04.1, release build

Libraries:
	wxWidgets 3.2.2
	FreeType 2.10.1
	HarfBuzz 2.6.4
	FontConfig 2.13.1
	libcurl/7.68.0 OpenSSL/1.1.1f zlib/1.2.11 brotli/1.0.7 libidn2/2.2.0 libpsl/0.21.0 (+libidn2/2.2.0) libssh/0.9.3/openssl/zlib nghttp2/1.40.0 librtmp/2.3

Platform: Linux Mint 20.3, 64 bit, Little endian, wxGTK, X11, xfce, x11
OpenGL: AMD, AMD RENOIR (DRM 3.42.0, 5.15.0-107-generic, LLVM 12.0.0), 4.6 (Compatibility Profile) Mesa 21.2.6

Build Info:
	Date: Jun  4 2024 12:41:44
	wxWidgets: 3.2.1 (wchar_t,wx containers) GTK+ 3.24
	Boost: 1.71.0
	OCC: 7.6.3
	Curl: 7.68.0
	ngspice: 42
	Compiler: GCC 9.4.0 with C++ ABI 1013

Build settings:
4

You have a reproducible bug here, please raise an issue on the tracker

5

It took me some time to create the issue:

And it was fixed 5 days later, and it should be included in KiCad V8.0.4

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