As per the title, Kicad completely crash after freezing for many seconds when attempting to export a gerber file. Some infos:
This happens just after clicking the “Trace” button
It simply freezes, then crashing, displaying no messages in the meantime on the log window
Only a 0KB file is generated on the destination folder. Apparently it stops on the first layer. Does not matter which layer it is (tried to deactivate them one by one)
I already updated the software version, at least 2 times since this problem began, I’m currently on 7.0.5
Tried to change gerber export settings
Tried to change the destination folder and/or disk
Tried to reboot the laptop
DRC check correctly generates the output, with no error
Drill files can be generated with outh any problem
As said, this happens with all the projects. In another laptop of a collegue of mine, the same projects can be exported without any problem, with the same settings!
When bugs are suspected, always update to at least the latest stable version first, which is currently V7.0.7 and V7.0.8 is expected very soon now, with yet another moth of bug fixing in it. Bumps in the third number are always just bug fixes (that is why KiCad uses a 3 digit version number) and it is recommended to always update. (If you have a company that depends on KiCad, then waiting about a week before doing the update is advisable, because sometimes *&^%$#@! happens in KiCad’s updates).
You can also have a look at:
to check if bugs related to gerber output have been fixed.
If after updating you still have the same problem, check the GitLab issue tracker for the same issue. In case there is none and you report it on GitLab, please include your detailed version info.
If there is already a issue, you can comment there to indicate that not only a single person has this problem, and also include the detailed version info.
Updated to 7.0.7 but i’m still here. I just saw a similar issue on Gitlab but apparently it has been closed for lack of information. Should i try to re-open it (if I can) or should I create a new one? Where?
Which information should I provide? Would a copy/paste of my first message be enough?
No. Create a new issue. (reason: that old issue affected a much older kicad version, most probably this new issue is different).
To create a issue:
register at gitlab (maybe you have already a account)
login at gitlab
use the kicad builtin-function: from the kicad-application with the bug (pcbnew in your case)–>Help–>Report Bug
this opens a new website at gitlab. This is a prepopulated template which already contains the version-information of your system.
The top edit-field of this template contains a section for:
#description
there you can copy your forum-thread
#Steps to reproduce
there you should write exactly what you are doing (in your case: opening board ;
File–>Fabrication output–>gerber; → press “Plot” → crash)
don’t delete these section-headers (but you can delete the following comment-lines)
adding a picture from the plot-settings (as in this forum post) is helpful
adding a archived example project may also helpful - maybe the crash depends on some project-settings
Additional helpful for the developers: If you enable the remote crash report in global Preferences–>Data collection–> “agree to anonymous reports”
And because of “In another laptop of a collegue of mine, the same projects can be exported without any problem” my last unwanted wisdom of today: Always be nice to your colleagues, so they let you create the production files on their machines.
Create a new one. 5.1.8 is quite outdated and it is probably not the same issue.
Edit: Too late, mf_ibfeew was faster. Anyway.
Which information should I provide?
If you create a new issue, it tells you which version information they need.
General rule: The more relevant information the better. Don’t hide information that is very annoying to find a error. Complete version, system, architecture example project (if it does not happen on everyone), path of your project (some OSs can have problems with too long paths, in particular Windows). What did you try to eliminate the problem, RAM and CPU usage during freeze and crash, is the disk not full …
Your starterpost doesn’t contain enough information.
