I’m having a problem with the reference designator numbers reverting to ? randomly. I worked on a schematic yesterday and set the reference designator numbers on the components and saved the file. This morning when I opened the schematic a number of the components reference designator numbers had been changed back to ?. Also if I move a block of components by selecting them to move them around on the schematic the reference designator numbers get set to ?. Any clue as to why this is happening?
Application: KiCad Schematic Editor x86_64 on x86_64
First: Please refer to either symbols (on schematics) or footprints (on pcbs). Those are the standard KiCad nomenclature. “Components” is ambiguous in the KiCad context.
Secondly, were the Ref Designations assigned automatically or did you assign them manually? Is it possible that you had duplicates or did something else to assign them improperly?
Tools>annotate schematic should assign them. But…I understand wanting to do it manually. I often prefer Q1 to be main switching transistor, or I want resistors in a divider string to have sequential reference designations. I then do some swapping of the Ref designations but…
Sorry about my incorrect wording. It’s the symbols on the schematic that are the problem. I am assigning the Ref Designators manually. I’m creating a schematic of the PCB out of my soldering station and I want to use the same Ref Designators that exist on the board so I turned off automatic annotation. I’m not sure what I could have done improperly to assign the Ref Designators. I double click on the symbol and change the designator and save it. It takes but then reverts back to ? at some point for some reason.
I figured out when it’s doing it but not why. If I double click on the symbol and change the Ref Designator in the dialog box that pops up then save the schematic and close it the change sticks when I reopen the schematic.
If I double click on just the Ref Designator and change it in the dialog box that pops up then save the schematic and close it the change sticks when I reopen the schematic.
If I click on the symbol once to bring up the properties on the left side of the screen under “Fields” and change the Ref Designator there and then save the schematic and close it the change sticks when I reopen the schematic.
If I click on the just the Ref Designator once to bring up the properties on the left side of the screen under “Fields” and change the Ref Designator there and then save the schematic and close it the change does not stick when I reopen the schematic and the Ref Designator is back to what it was prior to changing it.
It works for me. After editing it in the properties panel you have to deselect the refdes by clicking somewhere else then you will see the refdes change on the schematic and the modification will take.
I was hitting the Enter key after typing in the new Ref Designator. It has always taken the change but it’s when I save the schematic, close it and then open it the change is not there. This time I tried clicking on an open space in the schematic to deselect the refdes and then saving the schematic. I open the schematic and the change does not take.
No, not context menu click. I’m talking about the place on the left side of the screen that’s displaying the properties of the item when you left click on it. It’s labeled “Field” and under that there’s “Text Properties”, that’s where I’m making the changes to the refdes.
That works for me too. When I tried to exit the schematic it said there were unsaved changes, but I didn’t actually save to see if the change took. I’m actually on an earlier version than you, 8.0.6. My distro hasn’t caught up.
