…So I upgraded from 4.0.7 to 5.1.4 today. I had the “normal” issues and worked those out.
I cracked open a project that I needed to revise:
I found one problem that I couldn’t easily deal with (that hadn’t been an issue in 4.0.7): I had been (admittedly, lazily) using Hierarchical Labels to connect things within schematics - I’ve actually been doing that typically in many schematics.
In this circumstance, I had two Hierarchical Labels (eventually) feeding into the same pin of an IC: No matter what I did to monkey with the Eeschema file, I couldn’t get one of them to connect to anything, while the other would connect to everything just up to the problem label. I tried quite a few different things and updated the netlist many times in attempt to get the problem label to connect.
I eventually revised the netlabel of the pin object associated with that label (in PBCNew) which kludgily worked, but out of curiosity, I went back to Eeschema and replaced those Hierarchical Labels with ‘Local Labels’ (Net Label) and it totally worked, immediately, with no issues when I updated the netlist of the pre-5.1.4-edited version of the PBC file. ERC also doesn’t like it when you use Hierarchical Labels when all you really need is a Local Label.
The only thing I can glean from this is that there’s been some change to the behavior of Labels between 4.0.7 & 5.1.4; It makes sense, & I knew that I was abusing the Hierarchical Label symbol when using them to connect things on opposite ends of a single page schematic, rather than as an actual Hierarchical Label.
FWIW: Most of the reason I’m using labels at all is that I use single page schematics to create ‘stacking’ PCB projects, so for instance, typically, those Labels feed a pin header (or two) so that I can separate PCBs between ‘front’ and ‘back’ boards. In all case, the ‘front’ is controls (buttons, pots, etc) and the ‘back’ is the brains (power, ICs, etc): I find it much more easy to see both the schematic and PCB on the same page as I negotiate which (mostly passive) element fits best on which board. I’ve been working in this way for quite a few years, but I’m very receptive to suggestion on it - It’s been all really self-taught & what the PCB fabs would let me get away with…
Anyway, I bring this up in the hope that someone having a similar issue in the future will find this post and be able to quickly get their project back on track.
Cheers,
dugan