[SOLVED] KiCAD 6.0 all the 3D models are not loaded

@themaninthesuitcase Indeed it’s exactly what I did to solve it (see previous comment wher I posted the screenshot). It has to be tackled because it is an issue.
Probably the old variable is contained into projects, hence opening them, we face out this issue. The new variable is valid for new projects only :-/

One PC where I had installed some of the recent 5.99, 6.0 rc1 and rc2 builds before release had no 3D path problems and included the old missed path
Another PC where I waited for the 6.0.0 before adding to 5.1.12 had the path missing

This was usefull info, I got two missing components into my 3D picture.

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@LM21 this is on my original post if you see it … even put in evidence in BLUE …

It’s this. I opened my 6.0 test project in a text editor and searched for the old path variable:

Seems the upgrade doesn’t update the old path to the new one. This may be by design, but given it’s the old system path it feels like an omission.

@themaninthesuitcase this is clearly a bug. Because when you open a project on 6.0.0 it’s asking you

  • to import the settings from the old version
  • it’s old project and it will be saved as new (or something like that)

It doesn’t import the custom paths at all (my custom libraries I had to re-import them manually)
When it saves the old project converting it, it doesn’t change that variable.

The screenshot indicates that the footprints embedded in your board file are old and point to the old model location. (3d model paths are embedded inside each footprint, and footprints are embedded in the pcb file when they are used).

When/how was your test project created? If it was created with old (pre-v6) libraries, this makes sense.

The footprints released with v6 use the v6 variables, so my suggestion is either:

  • update your libraries to ones released with v6 (if not already), and use the update footprint from library function in pcbnew for each of your footprints to get the new paths
  • or define ${KISYS3DMOD} to point to the same place as the v6 variable; no footprint updates required

It was a project created with 5.1.10 upgraded by 6.0 as a test project. I would have expected that this would be managed by the upgrade but thinking about it footprints are “user data” so changing automatically them as part of an upgrade is probably not smart.

I’ll have a look at manually updating them, I already have KISYS3DMOD set to the v6 location as above.

I ran “Update Footprints from Library…” in the Pbcnew Tools menu and it fixed all instances of this issue.

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@themaninthesuitcase great suggestion! I applied it right now, on an old project: it works. Thanks a zillion

Finally it worked for me.
The 3D Viewer did not work at first, after the library update in the PCB Editor
After resetting to the default settings in the 3D Viewer, it now works

Version: 6.0.0-d3dd2cf0fa~116~ubuntu20.04.1, release build
Libraries:
wxWidgets 3.0.4
libcurl/7.68.0 OpenSSL/1.1.1f zlib/1.2.11 brotli/1.0.7 libidn2/2.2.0 libpsl/0.21.0 (+libidn2/2.2.0) libssh/0.9.3/openssl/zlib nghttp2/1.40.0 librtmp/2.3
Platform: Linux 5.4.0-91-generic x86_64, 64 bit, Little endian, wxGTK, cinnamon, x11
Build Info:
Date: Dec 23 2021 14:23:02
wxWidgets: 3.0.4 (wchar_t,wx containers,compatible with 2.8) GTK+ 3.24
Boost: 1.71.0
OCC: 7.5.2
Curl: 7.68.0
ngspice: 31
Compiler: GCC 9.3.0 with C++ ABI 1013
Build settings:
KICAD_USE_OCC=ON
KICAD_SPICE=ON

So If I don’t want to risk that my project does not work anymore when I reinstall kicad or in another computer, do I need to manually replace that in my proj?
Would that leave the project as a standard kicad6 project?

Why don’t you read all the comments? There was suggested a definitive solution by @themaninthesuitcase

Tahnks @tormyvancool… I did that but it did not work, it gave me 19 “footprint not found” errors
:frowning:
For example:

Error: Update footprint C11 from ‘Capacitor_SMD:C_1206_3216Metric_Pad1.42x1.75mm_HandSolder’ to ‘Capacitor_SMD:C_1206_3216Metric_Pad1.42x1.75mm_HandSolder’: *** footprint not found ***
Error: Update footprint R21 from ‘Resistor_SMD:R_2512_6332Metric_Pad1.52x3.35mm_HandSolder’ to ‘Resistor_SMD:R_2512_6332Metric_Pad1.52x3.35mm_HandSolder’: *** footprint not found ***

@crgarcia then the best way perhaps is to communicate it on GitLab as issue, describing all what you did. I would like this process done automatically, without any further intervention

I’ve encounter another anomaly during design migration. When you update the 3D models, it wipes out all the step file associations. So, when you export the STEP model, none of the components has a step file so none of the components are included with the export.

if the step models are only missing from the step export, follow this FAQ:

If the step models are missing in the 3D viewer as well, follow this FAQ:

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Thanks for the tip. Not sure how that option became unchecked but that was indeed the issue.

If you mean the “substitute” control, the option did not exist in V5.1, but behaved like ON.
In V6.0.x the default is OFF

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