Hi
I’ve often had a problem opening KiCAD layouts, when the same file will open fine on someone else’s computer. The schematic always opens without fail though - it is only the layout that fails.
This happens on multiple machines of mine, which are all different spec, but are all Win-10, latest stable KiCAD (so currently 5.1.9), use Github for syncing KiCAD file changes, and Google Drive for syncing libraries all have a similar software environment. My previous assumption had been that it was something to do with the graphics driver.
However, another thing that is consistent on my machines is that they all run rosetta@home (which runs on the BOINC platform), so the CPU is being used quite heavily, but at low priority. I don’t have any issues with any other programs, and have been running rosetta@home for 15 years or so without many issues along the way.
What I have found recently is that PCBNew will open fine if I snooze BOINC/rosetta@home, and then I can un-snooze R@H and everything is fine after that.
I will do more testing on this, but it is made more difficult because once a PCBNew file has opened once it seems to reliably open. Presumably because it has been loaded into memory at that point?
Most of the machines I have tested on have plenty of RAM (16GB or 32GB), all have SSDs, Win 10 and latest KiCAD and GPU drivers.
Does anyone think that might be a credible cause, or just coincidence?