My footprints in v5.0 have gone missing

The problem

I’m using v5.0 (see below for full info). After completing a project, (as best I can reconstruct) I imported new footprints from https://kicad.github.io/footprints. Now when I open eeschema, I notice two things:

  • One of my components now renders with a rectangle and a question mark inside it
  • When I click on ‘Browse Footprints’, it brings up a browser window with all the proper categories (‘Capacitors_SMD’, ‘Connectors’, ‘Pin_Headers’, etc), but when I click on a category, the category is blank and none of the footprints show up.

The questions

  • In v5.0, what’s the approved way to get up-to-date libraries?
  • How does one update / extend the library search paths?
  • What’s the approved recipe for “freezing” libraries and footprints for a completed v5.0 project?

If there’s already an FAQ or blog post on this topic, I’d welcome a pointer. Thanks!

Environment:

Application: kicad
Version: (5.0.0-rc2-dev-664-g5a90858), release build
Libraries:
    wxWidgets 3.0.4
    libcurl/7.54.0 LibreSSL/2.0.20 zlib/1.2.11 nghttp2/1.24.0
Platform: Mac OS X (Darwin 17.5.0 x86_64), 64 bit, Little endian, wxMac
Build Info:
    wxWidgets: 3.0.4 (UTF-8,STL containers,compatible with 2.8)
    Boost: 1.61.0
    Curl: 7.43.0
    Compiler: Clang 7.3.0 with C++ ABI 1002

Build settings:
    USE_WX_GRAPHICS_CONTEXT=ON
    USE_WX_OVERLAY=ON
    KICAD_SCRIPTING=ON
    KICAD_SCRIPTING_MODULES=ON
    KICAD_SCRIPTING_WXPYTHON=ON
    KICAD_SCRIPTING_ACTION_MENU=ON
    BUILD_GITHUB_PLUGIN=ON
    KICAD_USE_OCE=ON
    KICAD_SPICE=ON

The v5 libs are completely different to the v4 libs. There has been a large reorganization.

So use the old v4 libs for working on old projects and the new v5 libs for new projects.

The libs will be distributed through the download pages. More details see: https://kicad.org/libraries/download/

@Rene_Poschl:
I don’t have any legacy v4 projects, so that’s not an issue. But thank you for the github links showing me where to get the v5 libraries - that answers my first question.

However, that doesn’t answer my next two questions:

  • Once I’ve gotten the new libraries, how do I set up the proper search paths?
  • How do I freeze the footprints for a completed project (so the project will be immune to future changes in the libraries)?

Footprints are included in the pcb_new file header. So if you change anything on the lib side your project will stay untouched.
(You would need to manually update footprints using the “update footprint from lib” function within pcb_new to get the updated footprints into your project.)

Sadly for symbols such a simple way of archiving the project does not exist. The schematic file does not include any symbol information.
The only way you can change a symbol without your old projects staying intact is by ensuring that all your old projects have a valid [project name]-cache.lib file.
If you then change a symbol and open an old project (that uses that symbol) later you will be asked if you want to update the symbol in the project or if you want to rescue it.
If you choose to update, the new symbol will be copied into the cache lib.
If you choose to rescue, the old symbol will be copied out of the cache lib into the [project name]-rescue.lib and the schematic file will be updated to point to the rescue lib. After rescuing you must save the schematic file for these changes to take affect.


But be assured that kicad 5 will not update any of your libs without your direct input. The github plugin (which created this problem in v4) no longer works with the new library. (It would require one repo per lib.)

About installing a specific version of the libs have a look at: How can i install a specific version of the footprint library?

I assume “libraries” means “symbols”.

  1. You have to have correct sym-lib-table file in your KiCad configuration folder.
  2. You have to have correct folder (the location of the cymbol library) set in the KICAD_SYMBOL_DIR environment variable.

You can find the corresponding sym-lib-table in the downloaded symbol repository. Copy it to wherever the KiCad configuration files reside in the OSX.

You can maybe set KICAD_SYMBOL_DIR in the Path settings in KiCad or you can follow the instructions found in the document which I wrote and linked to in another thread: Any ultimate Guide on how to use KiCad 4 and 5 on one System?

As Rene said, footprints work a little bit differently in KiCad (until version 6 in the future where symbols behave as footprints behave now), but the footprint libraries are installed in the same way than symbols. They have the fp-lib-table file and KISYSMOD environment variable.

Rene is better qualified to give instructions for resqueing and handling per-project symbols.

This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.