I run KiCad 5 on both Mac and Win. My custom library resides (only) on my MacBook - shared Mac folders are mounted as drives on the Windows machine and the paths are all set up. This has worked fine for me for years.
Today under Windows I went to assign a footprint to a component, and the footprint browser displayed only one footprint, out of the hundreds in the library folder. There doesn’t seem to be anything special about the one that’s displayed - it’s not the first alphabetically or anything like that.
Under MacOS, KiCad sees all my footprints as expected, no issues.
It’s been a month or two since I did any work requiring access to my footprints, apart from looking at layouts in both 2D and 3D, which I can do even now. What I can’t do is select a footprint in the footprint editor or browser.
I don’t think I’ve made any changes to my setup lately, but yesterday I did open KiCad 6 just to view a project.
I tried deleting and re-creating all the path entries in the Windows app, using the folder browser so it’s not any kind of typo or path mistake.
It seems like an fp-lib-table issue but I don’t know how to fix it. The table at C:\Users\julia\AppData\Roaming\kicad\ has a modification date of yesterday, which is probably when I viewed a design with KiCad 6.
The table at C:\Program Files\KiCad5\share\kicad\template\ has a modification date of Nov 2021 and I’ve definitely done complete boards from scratch since then, which leads me to think it may not be an fp-lib-table issue.
Any help will be appreciated.
EDIT - I should have mentioned that my symbol library is working fine, the issue is only with my footprints.
Thanks Pedro. I never use cvpcb. I’m clicking the browser button in Symbol Properties or Edit Symbol Fields, and there are no filters there.
There’s no “finder” under Windows, and everything works normal on Mac. The paths are OK because I enter them using the folder browsers in Configure Paths and Manage Symbol Libraries.
I tried deleting and re-creating all the path entries in the Windows app, using the folder browser so it’s not any kind of typo or path mistake
Please check in v6, in library tables configuration gui (tools - footprint libraries or smth) - there is a column named “library type” (smth like that): v5 libs must be of “legacy” type, not “kicad” type (there is no auto recognize feaure in v6 - you must hand select library format in this column).
In overall, could you clarify where v6 is installed (on windows machine only)? Which exact version (help - about)? It is strange that you did not mention explicitly folder C:\Users\julia\AppData\Roaming\kicad\6.0 (please spot 6.0 at the end), because kicad v6 reads/writes to “6.0” subfolder only. It does not alter any files in root folder you mentioned (`C:\Users\julia\AppData\Roaming\kicad). Pre v6 kicad used the path you mentioned (root), but v6 and newer has their own versioned (6.0, 6.99, 7.0…) subfolders in that appdata dir.
Not sure what you’re trying to say. I do not use v6, I only use v5, as I said at the start of my post. I only launched v6 the other day to look at a friend’s design, and did not do any actual work with it.
You have v6 installed somewhere (“launched v6…”), please clarify where is it installed, on windows? An exact version of it (help about).
The idea is, that stable v6.0x installation would not alter existing v5 configuration in any way, because v6 and future versions use different appdata folder than v5 use.
Intermediate pre-v6 nightlies, aka “v5.99” as seen in help-about could do alter v5 configuration.
I am asking to clarify where, and what exact version of v6 is installed.
6.04, installed using the installer with all default settings. It’s in C:\Program Files\Kicad\6.0.
That’s reassuring, thanks. Maybe it’s a completely unrelated issue, like the fact that I got a new MacBook a month or so ago. I’ve remapped all my Mac folders onto new drive letters on the Win machine, and KiCad seems to see them fine, but maybe there’s something deep under the hood that’s confusing it. So weird that it sees one and only one footprint…
Sure, I meant on the Mac side because the libraries are placed in the mac partition ( as I understood). Only to know if the footprint you see from the windows side is not seen anymore.
