Porting from older version of Kicad

Software
1

Hi,
I have a board layout etc. but with an earlier version, 2013.07.07-BZR4022, I have looked at other similar topics but they do not give me what I need.
I am now using version 4.0.4
The Board will open up Ok and I can change between layer of which there are four, and I can add and delete tracks and components. But it tells me that the net file does not exsist, could someone please tell me why this is.
Thanks Ernie

2

Hi,

I presume your project miss the .net file that actually tells pcbnew how components are connected in schematic. If you have schematic than just genarate new netlist file and import it into pcbnew.

3

Thanks for the reply Okanovic.
Yes that is correct, and yes I tried to generate another net list but still no change,
It seems the problem might be in the component library, as it is telling me that some are missing is there a way to fix the labrary

4

You should perform full project migration. The tutorial linked in this post might help.

3 Likes
5

Hi, have gone through the process of porting, everything looks good, untill I look as the net list.
There are no errors shown but a warning for just about everything.
What goes here and how can I fix it.

Thanks Ernie

6

We need more than that… :wink:

7

THanks,
Here is a copy of the net list reportreport.txt (20.2 KB)

8

OK sorry for that, here is a copy of the report generated by the board
net list.

Nor sure what else I can give you.

Thanks

report.txt (20.2 KB)

9

Ummmm . . . . . it’s probably too late now, but you DID save a backup copy of at least the schematic and PCB files, didn’t you?

The great majority of those entries are benign. About half of them are " Info: " comments, just telling you what the netlist importing routine is doing. (I typically don’t even display the " Info: " comments when I import a netlist.)

The first 240 " * Warning: " messages seem to indicate that there was a change in path names since the original design was created. If your current “CA6.pretty” folder includes footprints that are essentially the same as the footprints used in the original design, there should be no problem. I have never migrated a project from the “Old Stable” version to a current version, but all of those " * Warning: " messages may be nothing more than an artifact from the migration process.

The last 3 lines are genuine errors. Take a look at footprint “BATTERY_4AA_12BH348-GR”, used for component “BT1” . See if the pads are actually named " 1 " and " 2 ", and not some funky string like " $1 " or " 2_ ". Also look at the symbol for “SW2”, as well as the footprint " EG1224 " assigned to it. Does the symbol have an “extra” pin - i.e., 4 pins instead of 3? (Beware that the fourth pin might be configured as “Invisible”.) Or, does the footprint have only 3 pads, when it should have 4? Either way, the number of pins shown on the schematic symbol should be the same as the number of pads in the footprint. Correct either the symbol, or the footprint, as necessary.

Dale

1 Like
10

Some old libraries liked to use text names like Vin and Vout, remember the 7805 problems a year ago. These days the rules on pad naming are stricter

11

I guess the pads for a battery holder might be named " + " and " - " . . . . more meaningful, from the perspective of information theory, but rather problematical for KiCAD.

Dale

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Thanks Guys for the input.