Is the project public? I think the changes you are willing to make are not really complex and you should not have any big issue dealing with Kicad 4 :).
I took a quick look at the PCB and it’s fine in KC5, but SCH’s have the missing symbols.
The PCB has about 100 parts on a 100x100mm PCB, and noticed it has 0.010" traces and GND fill keepout. I don’t think I can home DIY etch 10mil, so it’s ether change them all to 0.020" and make copper GND fill 20mil keepout, or just send out the gerbers to be made as is.
When I get some time I will see if I can mod the PCB in KC5 and leave the SCH as is, because going back to KC4 is going to be a PITA.
I might be able to think up one or two reasons, but I’d be able to present fixes, that in my opinion, outweigh any thought of still using V4 instead of V5.
If the original project used symbols of the official library then you might want to install the version 4 library for working on it.
If the missing symbols are from the company libraries then you need to install them on your system.
The problem here is that you need to “install” them in the old v4 way for the remap dialog to find them. (You need to tell kicad within the .pro file where your symbols are to be found. It really is not enough if the libraries are in the sym-lib-table for kicad 5.)
A very detailed writeup is found in this tutorial. I suggest you work through both workflows to get a feel for what to do before working on a real project: Converting KiCad version 4 projects to version 5 (Remap a project)
Unfortunately I think this is all too above my experience level. Given a month, or three 
, I might know enough to get it done. But with only days of KC experience, and only 2 years of hobby electronics, it’s just not enough.
The KC4 PCB seams to work in KC5, I just have to figure out how to increase the GND fill keepout to 0.020" and change all the 0.010" tracks to 20mil.
As for the SCH, there is no chance. I get 111 warnings, and 2 parts aren’t even in KC5 lib. Plus it’s one of those master SCH dwgs that link to other smaller SCHs - which is not linking -, and that makes things even worse.
I don’t think I actually need the SCH, other than it would be easier to find parts, so maybe I’ll skip it.
I’m actually doing some content creating - this is sucking up time I should be spending on KC -, so maybe I should do a vid.
I did a vid.
You can see half way through the old brain click on how to navigate SCH, but at 4:30 I get to the part symbol thing.
Is it as easy as just picking a symbol from that tree file structure that looks the same, and manually changing 1 at a time? I think there is also reconnecting each part, which must be why I’m getting 419 warnings.
Just curious at the moment.
You can try my python script bom2csv and bom2sch to rename/correcting the symbols link quickly from spreedsheet program, then update the back directly to your schematic. It may save you time for this manual steps.
Chris Gammel has posted a series of videos on his contextual electronics youtube channel for kicad 5
I had already watched all of them, and he said he was going to do a KC4 to KC5 vid on it 1 month ago, but he still hasn’t. They kind-of aren’t real tutorials, more just hints, so I don’t know if it’s going to be that good any way.
I read the instructions but I get lost straight away, so that’s why I kind-of need a video. No one had said that my simple swap out symbols in my video is correct, so I guess it’s more complex than what I was thinking.
Edit:
After writing the post below I cloned:
paul@dualcore:~/projects/kicad$ git clone https://github.com/rusefi/rusefi.git
A bit later I found:
/home/paul/projects/kicad/rusefi/hardware/frankenstein/merge/rebuild.bat
with the remark:
rem Let’s wipe out all local libraries. Frankenstein does not have it’s own libraries!
This suggests you should be able to recover the schematic symbols from the default libraries if you follow Rene’s tutorial, but also look into the rebuild.bat file. It copies libraries and does other things.
I also found that “frankenstein” is apprently an old version and “frankenso” is the continuation
I think this is about my limit for how far I want to go for this project.
From your video it is clear you do not have much experience with KiCad.
I noticed (@ 0:52) you did not know what PROJECTNAME.pro means. It is the KiCad Project file. You should always open the project file in the KiCad project manager, and open schematic and pcb programs from there.
I am not sure what happens if you want to convert a KiCad V4 project to V5 without having the project manager open. Experienced KiCad users are so used to this step that @Rene_Poschl only mentiones it very briefly in his excellent remapping tutorial.
@ 3:10 you are looking at boxes with question marks. This means the conversion has gone wrong, and anything following that is pretty much useless.
Does your project have a [projectnam]-cache.lib? This library is important for conversions from KiCad V4 to V5, but because of the @#$%^&* resolution of your youtube video I could not see the directory listing.
From the screenshot below it looks like the schematic you are looking at is already for KiCad V5.
I thought about having a look at that project, and after a bit of clicking found:
https://github.com/rusefi/rusefi/tree/master/hardware
but there are so many sub projects there that I don’t know which one to pick.
I looked at a few projects there (frankso, frankenstein and CJ125_board), and neither of those have the [project]-cache.lib file.
That file is pretty important, because in it are all the schematic symbols. Without that file KiCad gets confused and can only show blank boxes with question marks in the schematic.
Your best hope is to install the old libraries (see Rene’s tutorial) before attempting the conversion from V4 to V5.
For anyone still following this topic, I hassled Chris and he made a video - https://youtu.be/mOM6bf5XFIw -.
It was exactly what I thought in my video, that you need to click on each box with a “?” and manually change the symbols 1 by 1.
If you need to change several you can use “Tools/Edit Symbol Library References...”. I just confirmed that it is in 5.0.2 stable.
Changed the thread title. This was nothing to do with V6
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When I get a chance I will fumble around and see if I can get it working.
The problem with newbies is they don’t yet know the terminology used in text instructions, so it all just gobbledygook. And that’s why I needed visual instructions to link what is being said with what it actually looks like.
Well screenshots get easily out of date. (And look different on different operating systems.)
Text is a bit more permanent (and portable). And in this case a screenshot would tell you nothing more than what @SembazuruCDE already told you. (Click on the tools menu in the top toolbar and select the Edit Symbol library references tool.)
Or is it possible that you already found the tool but did not understand how to use it? (The quote you make seems to suggest you have trouble finding the tool in the first place. But my gut tells me you struggle at a step further along.)
The text also changes when there is major changes, so it’s kind-of in the same boat.
The tool looks pretty straight forward, ie it’s the individual symbol changer but with similar components grouped.
I still get a lot of misses, and now I’m thinking it’s maybe because the guy made a lot of components, or maybe I don’t have all the libraries. Like the guy used a MAX3339, but there is none in KC5.
The one thing it did find was Q407, which it says is a FDS2734, but the symbol he used if different to the KC5 symbol.
I suppose I don’t really have to use his exact symbols, so maybe I just put whatever in. I only really need the highlight symbol link between the SCH and PCB drawing to find stuff fast.
Is there by any chance a project local library that you would need to add? Maybe it is on a separate server. Ask the guys who originally made the project where you could find the libraries needed for it. (MAX3339 is not present in the v4 libs so it could not have come from there. Meaning there must be a custom library around somewhere.)
I also wonder why you got question marks as symbols. This should really only happen if the cache library is damaged or missing. (If it is missing ask the original guy if they have it locally.)
I have the whole Git for the project and there is no Libs in it. The only Lib is the one that comes with the sketch when you open the .pro file, and that only has a few logos and an op-amp - odd that the op-amp has a ?box in SCH -.
Maybe if you don’t have the Libs that the guy had installed when he make the sketch, you don’t get them.
Chris showed in his video how a ?box appears.
Since there is only 20 part groups, I’m just going to modernise the sketch and update them to KC5 Lib parts. Had a bad experience with KC4 parts being poorly made 3 years ago and abandoned KC, but now that I found out KC5 parts go through a rigorous checking procedure I’m kind-of interested in it again.
But only if there is no cache lib file present 
This is the whole point of my argument! This file is to be considered part of the sch file. Whoever made the project has setup their git wrong such that this essential file has not been pushed to the server.
If it is a public repo you could always link to it. Maybe one of us can discover where the libs could be. If it is private then the only option you have is to contact the original author about either which libs they used and where to find them or alternatively ask for the cache lib file.
If they themselves no longer have either the cache lib or the original libs then it will be quite difficult to get the project back up and running.
Just to be clear: This problem would have hit you no matter what version of kicad you use. So don’t let them tell you that switching to v5 is the reason for the troubles. It is entirely because some wise guy thought the cache lib file is not important. (And yes the devs are aware that a better solution is needed here. This is planned for version 6 of kicad.)
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