I tried the ‘Highlight collisions’ mode in the Interactive router settings of PcbNew to make the ‘Free angle mode’ available. I changed the mode back to ‘Walk around’, but when I drag a track in my PCB-design, it still moves the track at a free angle, and the tracks do not automatically keep clearance from each other. It still highlights on collisions. I have to change back the settings, as it is very difficult now to finish my design. I had this happen to me in version 6, but after an update to version 7.0.8, the issue remains. Is this expected behavior? How do I change it back to how it was (default)? Is this a bug? Thanks in advance!
I want to add that if I start a drag using ‘D’, it works as it did before. When clicking a track to drag, it works as it does when pressing ‘G’. It seems that the mouse click behavior has changed, but did not change back.
Are you aware that there are 2 settings which may affect this?
You can change something with leftclick->“Einstellungen des Interaktiven Routers”*->Mode and options. And in “Einstellungen”*->Preferences->PCB Editor->“Bearbeitungsoptionen”*
How did you set both of them?
What happens when you press shift-7 (for /) and shift-ctrl-7?
*I don’t know the terms in your language, but that this are the ones in my language.
Thank you for the suggestion @johannespfister and @jmk. I looked it up and that option was still set to free angle mode, though I never changed anything in this menu. Changing the settings in the other menu must have changed behavior which is not reverted when changing it back. This could be experienced as confusing.
I tried changing the suggested setting to 45 degree. When I clicked “Apply”, KiCAD crashed as a whole. Both the Schematic and PCB editor just closed (and when reopening, I got a message they were still open, though they were not). This happened in the latest version (7.0.8).
I reopened the PCB editor and the setting was at 45 degree mode. The behavior is back to how it was originally. I can now change the suggested setting back and forth without crashing the PCB editor. I do not dare to try changing it again in the Interactive Router Settings menu. Maybe a developer wants to try replicating this behavior to consider fixing the crashing issue and maybe even the confusion I and possibly others experienced.
KiCad started using lock files to prevent having the same KiCad project open in two KiCad instances at the same time, and those lock files are not deleted when KiCad crashes. You can just delete these lock files
That is not possible with more information. You would need to provide more information and try to reproduce it reliable on your computer first.
With the information »it crashed once when trying to change rotating mode to 45°, but not when i tried it the second time«, without version, OS and especially more information on how to reproduce it, nobody has a chance to reproduce it. There is always the slight possibility that some error outside KiCad (especially without ECC), can cause some data corruption and cause KiCad to crash.
I spent some 10 minutes trying to reproduce the crash, but there is not enough info to replicate it.
If you’re willing to spend some time to reproduce this crash, and can do so in a reliable way, then this is a good way to “give something back” to the KiCad project. Such bugs can be very dependent on for example your project configuration, and uploading the project may be a necessary part to be able to make a usable bug report. Issues on gitlab can be marked as confidential, and in that case no one outside of a small group of developers (and you the creator) can even see issue itself.
