Hello Guys,
I’ve used kicad 5.x on a Ubuntu Linux computer to design a couple PCBs. So far so good. It was a long time ago.
Today, needing to change something on one of my design, I’ve launched Kicad 7.0.11 (which appears to be installed on my machine) and got a lot of errors and, of course, my project does not show.
I’ve used Kicad only once a looong time ago. So I’m totally lost here.
Could you please point me to how I can open properly old Kicad design in a more newer version of the software ?
Many thanks in advance for your help.
Have a bright day while they last.
First make sure you have a backup of your project.
I would install the latest KiCad version (9.0.1) and try and open the old project. It should convert it to the latest format but it’s not a given. 5.x is a ancient version.
Post any screenshots of errors you come across. If it fails to convert correctly there may even be a bug which should then be reported so it can be fixed. (Help / Report Bug)
I remember when V7 was ‘current’ someone had a problem to open V5 projects and going with it through V6 helped him. But it was probably one of first V7 releases so I would expect no such problems for 7.0.11.
I have never tried to skip a version = whenever I install new version (V6, V7, V8) I just spend few hours to ensure that all my files I can expect ever to be needed are opened and saved in new version.
But in theory old files should be opened by current version.
If you have a problem with V7 you should try with V9 as if you report it as a bug than V9 bugs are being processed while V7 probably not.
Back in V5 days, KiCad projects had several cache and rescue files. Are all of these present in your V5 project that you are trying to import?
These days the schematic and pcb files are selfcontained with symbols and footprints stored inside them.
V5.1 to V6 was the biggest change and incompatible jump in KiCad development as V6 development was over-extended.
Annual updates are much less traumatic.
It’s not only that. The KiCad cache and rescue files (in KiCad V5) were a stop gap method to make KiCad sort of independent from external libraries. In KiCad V6 this got fixed properly, and all information to show the schematic and the PCB is now embedded into the schematic and and PCB files.
So this is quite normal / expected when a KiCad project from V5 (or earlier) is loaded. For such projects you have to go though the rescue process (which should be triggered automatically when opening the project in KiCad V6 or newer).
This rescue process seems to act a bit strangely sometimes, and when using it incorrectly, you also need to do (quite a lot) of manual repair. And what does this mean:
Opening the project file should just work. The PCB too. For schematic symbols, you probably see the big [??] placeholders instead of normal schematic symbols. This looks very alarming, but it’s not as severe as it seems. All the symbol information is still present, but due to the limits of the older KiCad version, the newer KiCad can not load the graphics for the symbols, and shows [??] for all those symbols instead. This can be fixed by going though the rescue process properly. We can not do much with “does not show”. Are there parts that do work? What does it look like?
Hi Guys,
Thank a lot, all of you for your answer.
I had an idea, as I’ve a Windows 11 machine in a VirtualBox computer, to install on it the Kicad 5.12 software.
And, using the backups I had, I was able to open the project and made the changes I needed.
Now, I know the project are fine, provided, I do not mess with them, so I’ll have to learn and devise a way to convert them to the current version of Kicad.
And my Windows machine will serve as a sandbox for this. …
Have a nice and bright day and, again, thank you !
The issue is not the program, but your old libraries. V5.1 and earlier relied on the library to load a schematic (only links to the library symbols were embedded in the schematic).
In V6 and upwards, relevant symbols are embedded in the *.kicad_sch files, which solves the issue.
You’ll most likely need to a dual install with V5+libraries and V6/V7/V8 to make the upgrade so the symbols are loaded into the schematic.
V7.0.11 and V8.0.9 are very stable, V9 is still in the bug-resolving phase. I’d go with V8.
Yes, I’ve understood that.
But if I want to convert my old projects into 7.xx versions, how should I proceed ?
I now have a sandbox running Windows where I can go from the actual 5.1 to the 7.X “easily”
As I’m not good at Kicad, I need someone holding my hand or a proper detailed procedure if one exists.
Many thanks for the attention to my problem.
Copy your entire V5 project into a new folder and then open in V7.
Most update errors are due to these “kludge” cache files not being included, as the actual schematic and pcb files did not include them back then.
Many DRC “errors” after importing are due to the steady improvement in DRC coverage in newer KiCad versions.
For example.
Checking it in V4 and then using in V5 I had justified for me reason to add in courtyard layer pin1 marking and diode polarity marking. I have also reference and value in courtyard.
KiCad V5 had nothing against it. It had also nothing against placing footprints such that courtyard rectangles touch each other.
Then my projects opened in V6 had lot of courtyard layer related Errors. I have changes these Errors to “Ignore” and PCBs are error-free again 