STEP out on 1 board not working "Can't add a VRML model to STEP File"

version 6.0.0 on OSX

I’ve got 2 PCBs with a bunch of standard parts (SOICs, 0603 Rs, etc…) that all show up fine in 3D view but when I STEP output the board I get a huge list of errors:

“Cannot add a VRML model to a STEP file”

and the STEP file that comes out is just a small (couple hundred kB) file that is just the board outline with no components.

Is there some option I should be looking for?

These boards were both designed from scratch in Kicad 6.

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I just figured out. If I check “Use similarly named model” option in STEP export it works.

It seems KiCAD comes with WRL and STEP of every model and it prerfers to load the WRL for display in PCBnew, but it’s not smart enough now to use the STEP version of each component upon STEP export unless you check that box.

I don’t remember ever having that issue with v4 and 5 but maybe I had just ticked that box a long time ago and forgot?

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Please upvote this: Step export: Be more verbose about "Substitute similarly named models" and missing step models (#10291) · Issues · KiCad / KiCad Source Code / kicad · GitLab

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