See https://gitlab.com/kicad/code/kicad/-/issues/4666 and
https://gitlab.com/kicad/code/kicad/-/issues/4668
Schematic difficulty with recent nightly builds: I tried all of this using general workflows which have worked well previously. I allow KiCad to save in new file formats as it seems to want to do:
I am using the following recent build to work on a schematic diagram:
Application: KiCad
Version: (5.99.0-1946-g60915fbc7), release build
Libraries:
wxWidgets 3.0.4
libcurl/7.66.0 OpenSSL/1.1.1d (Schannel) zlib/1.2.11 brotli/1.0.7 libidn2/2.2.0 libpsl/0.21.0 (+libidn2/2.1.1) nghttp2/1.39.2
Platform: Windows 8 (build 9200), 64-bit edition, 64 bit, Little endian, wxMSW
Build Info:
Build date: Jun 13 2020 21:04:17
wxWidgets: 3.0.4 (wchar_t,wx containers,compatible with 2.8)
Boost: 1.71.0
OCE: 6.9.1
Curl: 7.66.0
Compiler: GCC 9.2.0 with C++ ABI 1013
Build settings:
KICAD_SCRIPTING=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_MODULES=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_PYTHON3=OFF
KICAD_SCRIPTING_WXPYTHON=ON
KICAD_SCRIPTING_WXPYTHON_PHOENIX=OFF
KICAD_SCRIPTING_ACTION_MENU=ON
BUILD_GITHUB_PLUGIN=ON
KICAD_USE_OCE=ON
KICAD_SPICE=ON
I try to use the symbol editor to produce some power ports. (Same result later with schematic symbols.) To do this I open an existing power port, then “save as” and edit. Of course this does not yet save permanently into the symbol library. When I try to do that, KiCad repeatedly defaults to my project folder (not the different location of my library folder) but even after re-directing I cannot get it to really save.
I thought: OK; my build is a few days old so I tried updating to the latest I see which is
kicad-r16075.aeed8e6e2-x86_64-lite.exe
This latest build is much worse.
- If I open symbol editor from project manager, KiCad simply crashes (quits…goodbye).
- If I open an existing schematic diagram, KiCad freezes. (another crash). I tried two different schematics with the same result.
I cannot do anything with this latest nightly build. Never encountered any KiCad build which is so malfunctional. I have now reverted to the previous build. I don’t want to experiment with one in between.
Now again with the previous build I can edit the schematic OK but I cannot save schematic symbols. But I do notice that KiCad seems to think that my KiCad symbol library (in my own folder) is read only. Can I fix this? As they have always been, my libraries are in my own folder, separate from the KiCad install folder and from my project folder. This has always worked well.