Plugins not showing in KiCAD 9.0.6 flatpak on Linux Mint 22.2 Cinnamon

External Plugins
1

Hello! I am aware that a similar thread to this was posted just a day ago, but the thread provided no answers for Linux Mint flatpak.

My issue is that my plugins seem to have vanished from the usual menu bar in the PCB viewer, as seen in the first photo (these popped up besides the terminal icon earlier).

kicad1
kicad13070×1650 317 KB

I have seen people suggest looking at the error message in the triangle icon (yellow) that pops up in Preferences > PCB Editor > Plugins, but this window is absolutely empty.

I have seen other people recommend installing requests for python, which I did by doing flatpak run --command=sh org.kicad.KiCad, then pip install requests. I saw someone else have the same issue but fix it with pip install kikit, but to luck sadly.

Preferences > Plugins looks like this

kicad3
kicad32020×1316 121 KB

Proof I have a plugin installed:

kicad4
kicad41846×1122 157 KB

I have uninstalled and installed it, without closing the program, so could do that, but feels like wishful thinking. Other solutions I’ve thought of is importing the plugins from “Install from File” but I would ideally like to fix the exact issue, not circumvent it. Same with someone else reverting to 9.0.5 that fixed it. I would rather have the issue solved should this impact future versions or be something that I can fix myself.

This is all the information about the version I am using from the About KiCAD > Version page. If you have suggestions for how to give additional debug information, please do tell!

Application: KiCad x86_64 on x86_64

Version: 9.0.6, release build

Libraries:
wxWidgets 3.2.8
FreeType 2.14.1
HarfBuzz 11.4.5
FontConfig 2.17.1
libcurl/8.15.0 OpenSSL/3.5.4 zlib/1.3.1 zstd/1.5.7 libidn2/2.3.8 libpsl/0.21.5 nghttp2/1.66.0

Platform: Freedesktop SDK 25.08 (Flatpak runtime), 64 bit, Little endian, wxGTK, X11, cinnamon, x11
OpenGL: Intel, Mesa Intel(R) UHD Graphics 630 (CFL GT2), 4.6 (Compatibility Profile) Mesa 25.2.6 (git-3f12436d80)

Build Info:
Date: Nov 11 2011 11:11:11
wxWidgets: 3.2.8 (wchar_t,wx containers) GTK+ 3.24
Boost: 1.89.0
OCC: 7.9.2
Curl: 8.15.0
ngspice: 45.2
Compiler: GCC 15.2.0 with C++ ABI 1020
KICAD_IPC_API=ON

Locale:
Lang: en_US
Enc: UTF-8
Num: 1 234,5
Encoded кΩ丈: D0BACEA9E4B888 (sys), D0BACEA9E4B888 (utf8)

And please ignore the weird PCB thing I am working on haha, it’s an “art” project. Thanks for your help, I hope to get some insight on this.

Pages I’ve visited:

2

Do you have a particular reason for using flatpak?

I use Mint. I installed the official Ubuntu release and everything works properly, including the Plugins.

3

Haha, valid point. It’s been working great up until now, which is why I felt flatpak worked fine, but I’m aware of its quirks. So I may also just change to the official release. Would be nice if my current setup could be fixed though lol

4

When installing from a PPA, it’s impossible to install other applications that use shared libraries. For example, Freecad (OCCT dependency conflict) and the Qucs-S simulator (dependency conflict). A solution is to use some programs in different formats.

5

I downgraded KiCAD to 9.0.5 and that fixed the issue, which wasn’t very surprising haha. Going to look into the cause of the bug when I have more time. Still looking for ways to fix this in 9.0.6.

6

you may consider to try the AppImage option