PCM Plugin Errors in 6.0.9

External Plugins
#1

Hello,

I’m currently using KiCad 6.0.9 installed through flatpak on CentOS. In version 6.0.7, I was able to use plugins available through the content manager (such as the action plugins and board2pdf). However, after the 6.0.9 update, these now give errors such as "AttributeError: module ‘pcbnew’ has no attribute ‘BOARD_GetStandardLayerName’ ".

I reverted back to 6.0.7 and verified that the plugins work properly on that version. Do these plugins have an API incompatibility at this time or is there a simpler fix for this problem that I am missing? Please let me know if I can provide further information.

Thanks

#2

I am on 6.0.9 on Kubuntu 22.04 and in my case, I can access pcbnew.BOARD.GetStandardLayerName

You should be able to check this in PCB editor python console.

import pcbnew
brd = pcbnew.GetBoard()
brd.GetStandardLayerName(pcbnew.F_Cu)

last statement returns 'F.Cu'

#3

You should report issues like this on the plugin’s github page. Link is in the package description in plugin manager.

#4

That also works for me in the PCBNEW console, but for some reason the plugins can’t seem to correctly access this information

#5

I don’t think it’s necessarily an issue with a particular plugin, as it doesn’t seem like the API changed and my particular update to 6.0.9 caused issues with multiple plugins. However, I might be incorrect. 6.0.8 may also be problematic, I just know 6.0.7 works.

I figured it might have more to do with my particular flatpak installation or settings, as I have not seen any others voice these same problems moving from versions in KiCAD 6. But as I mentioned above, through the terminal I can access the API just fine, but I cannot determine why multiple plugins cannot. If you have any advice on any other tests I might run, please let me know.

Thanks

#6

Post specific plugin and screenshot or full text of the error message, I can look at the code.
Also try reinstalling the plugin from manager after upgrade to 6.0.9.

#7

I did more searching into the error with the Board2Pdf plugin, since that is the one I am interested in at the moment. The error I was getting said pcbnew didn’t have the attribute “BOARD_GetStandardLayerName()”, just as the action plugins did. I tested this in my terminal and found I also don’t access to it, even though it appears in my pcbnew.py file and the documentation online. Maybe this is being obsoleted now.

To get around it, I just changed the script to get the board object and call its function as MitjaN described.

#8

Hi,
I’m the main author of Board2Pdf.
I just downloaded 6.0.9 and the plugin works fine for me under Windows. Strange that it doesn’t work with the flatpack under CentOS!
I’m not sure if I should fix this in Board2Pdf, or if it should be fixed in the flatpack…
It also works fine in the terminal:

Py 0.9.8
Python 3.9.14 (main, Sep 19 2022, 05:11:57) [MSC v.1932 64 bit (AMD64)] on win32
Type “help”, “copyright”, “credits” or “license” for more information.
Startup script executed: C:\Users\denne\AppData\Roaming\kicad\6.0\PyShell_pcbnew_startup.py

import pcbnew
pcbnew.BOARD_GetStandardLayerName(0)
‘F.Cu’
pcbnew.BOARD_GetStandardLayerName(1)
‘In1.Cu’

My version:

Application: KiCad PCB Editor (64-bit)

Version: (6.0.9), release build

Libraries:
wxWidgets 3.2.1
libcurl/7.83.1-DEV Schannel zlib/1.2.12

Platform: Windows 11 (build 22621), 64-bit edition, 64 bit, Little endian, wxMSW

Build Info:
Date: Oct 29 2022 23:44:28
wxWidgets: 3.2.1 (wchar_t,wx containers)
Boost: 1.79.0
OCC: 7.6.0
Curl: 7.83.1-DEV
ngspice: 37
Compiler: Visual C++ 1929 without C++ ABI

Build settings:
KICAD_USE_OCC=ON
KICAD_SPICE=ON