Symbol instances multiplied in schematic files, anybody noticed?

Software
1

I tried to search from the bug database but didn’t find a report about this. I wonder if anyone else has noticed this.

We use git, so it’s easy to see if something strange happens with files. We have seen adding and removing lines between commits, so that each symbol is multiplied like this:

(instances
		(project "XXX"
			(path "/5fe7a4eb-9f04-4df6-a1fa-36c071e280d7"
				(reference "C27")
				(unit 1)
			)
			(path "/5fe7a4eb-9f04-4df6-a1fa-36c071e280d7/65bcc829-b57b-4576-80ba-1248fc98fd34"
				(reference "C27")
				(unit 1)
			)
			(path "/5fe7a4eb-9f04-4df6-a1fa-36c071e280d7/9212394c-ac30-43c9-8705-f7de1f3e3f46"
				(reference "C27")
				(unit 1)
			)
			(path "/5fe7a4eb-9f04-4df6-a1fa-36c071e280d7/91fb187b-f157-421f-b8b3-3de41256c3a4"
				(reference "C27")
				(unit 1)
			)
		)

We, two people, use v8.0 on Windows, although our exact versions (release version or “testing”) may differ. If this continues, I have to take time to try to find out what it is, but now I’m just wondering if anybody has noticed this or knows something about this. I think we will soon update to the latest testing build (which happens to be an RC for 8.0.2).

2

For what I knew, this looks like a correct hierarchical duplication of the same sheet. The only problem is the reference of the capacitor which seems to have been forced to C27 on all instances.

In my own design, I have similar hierarchical instances and I let KiCad update the reference by itself:

		(instances
			(project "Macbeth"
				(path "/5fa8abc4-78ab-4ce8-baa0-0689a4ce13b2/855368d1-697d-40b9-84df-18f0e16e41fa/d65b5a7a-dee9-435a-addc-d854c008dc59/e2306cbb-6cd4-49dd-a351-7e19829b0655/f2e9a329-aac9-422f-bfcd-b470ee67046e"
					(reference "R239")
					(unit 1)
				)
				(path "/5fa8abc4-78ab-4ce8-baa0-0689a4ce13b2/855368d1-697d-40b9-84df-18f0e16e41fa/d65b5a7a-dee9-435a-addc-d854c008dc59/e2306cbb-6cd4-49dd-a351-7e19829b0655/4000e42c-93da-4ea6-b3f9-753486e645a7"
					(reference "R246")
					(unit 1)
				)
				(path "/5fa8abc4-78ab-4ce8-baa0-0689a4ce13b2/855368d1-697d-40b9-84df-18f0e16e41fa/d65b5a7a-dee9-435a-addc-d854c008dc59/e2306cbb-6cd4-49dd-a351-7e19829b0655/b749075b-2581-4e51-b2d9-249fbf3ac042"
					(reference "R253")
					(unit 1)
				)
				(path "/5fa8abc4-78ab-4ce8-baa0-0689a4ce13b2/855368d1-697d-40b9-84df-18f0e16e41fa/d65b5a7a-dee9-435a-addc-d854c008dc59/e2306cbb-6cd4-49dd-a351-7e19829b0655/2a79d9ae-7035-467d-8d42-254c72623509"
					(reference "R260")
					(unit 1)
				)
			)
		)

Maybe you updated the hierarchical structure of your design between commits?

I am using KiCad 8.01 / Windows 10

3

Your example looks correct, there are several instances with difference reference designators and different symbol UUIDs in one sheet. In my example the sheet UUID (the first part of the path) is the same and the symbol UUID differs while the refdes is the same.

I haven’t seen duplicated symbols in the schematic, there should be none, KiCad behaves normally, but in one commit all the symbols are quadrupled and in the other commit the extra ones are deleted from the files. And as far as I can see, this happened for all symbols throughout the project, in several sheets. We have the root sheet and the depth is one, some subsheets. All have symbols.

4

At the moment it looks like this is caused by using the Edit Symbol Fields dialog and adding information, possibly after adding field templates in the schematic setup. Hopefully I’ll find time to investigate further.