Outlines of PCB components do not show pads

[ebike]

Hi,

I am using nightly, and have noticed something different starting a PCB design.
I have created the schematic fine, and have imported the netlist into PCB editor. However, the components look like the attached picture, I don’t see the pads unless I click on them footprint. There is no way I can wire up the footprints this way …

What am I missing?

[paulvdh]

It looks like the courtyard is white / grey instead of the default yellow.
Have you been messin’ a lot with settings in KiCad?

If I turn off: Pcbnew / Layers Manager / Items / Pads (Front + Back + THT) then my PCB looks quite similar to yours:

It also has the same behavior of only showing pads when a Footprint is selected.

If that does not work then copy your full version info (From KiCad / Help / About … / Copy Version Info) and paste it here.

[ebike]

I don’t even have a “Pads” front/back, but F.Cu and B.Cu and they are on, everything is on, and I have not changed any settings from default.

Version info is:
" Application: KiCad

Version: (5.99.0-9638-g5a4fd9fb80), release build

Libraries:
wxWidgets 3.0.4
libcurl/7.64.1 SecureTransport (LibreSSL/2.8.3) zlib/1.2.11 nghttp2/1.41.0

Platform: macOS Version 10.16 (Build 20D74), 64 bit, Little endian, wxMac

Build Info:
Date: Mar 7 2021 06:38:21
wxWidgets: 3.0.4 (wchar_t,STL containers,compatible with 2.8)
Boost: 1.75.0
OCC: 7.5.0
Curl: 7.54.0
ngspice: 31
Compiler: Clang 10.0.1 with C++ ABI 1002

Build settings:
KICAD_SCRIPTING=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_MODULES=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_PYTHON3=OFF
KICAD_SCRIPTING_WXPYTHON=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_WXPYTHON_PHOENIX=OFF
KICAD_SCRIPTING_ACTION_MENU=ON
KICAD_USE_OCC=ON
KICAD_SPICE=ON
"

[radix]

In 5.99 the tab is called “Objects” but it’s the same place that “Items” used to be (next to layer visibility settings). In there, you will find the option to display pads and adjust their opacity.

[paulvdh]

@ebike

I don’t even have a “Pads” front/back, but F.Cu and B.Cu and they are on, everything is on

Have another look at my screenshot.
I put a big fat circle around the text "Items"

Here is the equivalent for KiCad-nightly V5.99:

The texts “Layers”, “Objects”, and “Nets” are tab pages. You have only shown the “Layers” tab page. On the other tab pages there are more settings.

The setting you want is for “Pads”. You can have been turned off completely with the eye, or they can have been to transparent with the slider fully to the left. Start clicking and sliding and see what changes.

[ebike]

Thanks, indeed the Pads/Zones “Objects” are off. So the question remains, why the heck were they off by default? I did not touch them. …

[paulvdh]

If you get that upset about such a small thing, then maybe you should reconsider:

Is it a good idea to use a nightly build version?

Short answer: If you have to ask, you should probably stick to the stable release. What are nightly builds? As the name implies, nightly builds are generated every night from the current master branch of the source repository. They are meant to allow a wider audience to more easily test new features. What are the dangers when using nightly builds? Nightly builds like all software have bugs. Because they have new not yet widely tested features you must expect a higher number of bugs. This inclu…

On the other hand. If you can recall when this happened and what sort of thing you were doing in KiCad, then maybe you can trigger this again and file a bug report.

[ebike]

I wasn’t getting upset, just amazed that it was a default setting to be like that. You are being very sensitive my friend. Just say thanks for finding a new bug … and we are good.

I had just finished my Schematic and pressed the icon to start the PCB layout, then imported from schematic … and there you have it … If I delete the PCB and start again, it is totally repeatable …

[eelik]

I don’t think it’s like that by default. I reset my settings every now and then on Linux and Windows by deleting the configuration directory and don’t remember having those off.

[ebike]

Well I am on MacOS, maybe it is different on that platform …

[eelik]

That would be strange.

But I was wrong about the settings: it’s actually in the project’s .kicad_prl file, so just deleting the user configuration doesn’t change it. To be absolutely sure you could rename your personal configuration directory and the project’s .kicad_prl file. (The latter keeps the UI state of the project which isn’t part of the design and usually not shared with other users but is kept between sessions.)

[paulvdh]

From my writings I sometimes appear to be more rude then what the waves between my ears predict. It’s probably because of the curls in the keyboard cord that mixes things up.

I just created a new empty project in KiCad-nightly V5.99 put a single component in the schematic and ported it to Pcbnew with [F8] and by default all the pads show.

I have no idea where these defaults come from, apparently eelik has a lot more knowledge of this then I do. I also do not have your brand of PC, and can’t help much there.

[ebike]

No Problem … he he

I suspect it maybe that the .kicad_prl file in question is a left over from an old Kicad version?
When I started this project I copied and pasted another project which I modified (The schematic) but all the other files were hanging over including the above file … I thought that by deleting the .kicad_pcb file that I would remove all traces of the old one … it seems not … should have deleted the .kicad_prl as well … but did not know what it was for.

oops