Undeletable teardrop residue - can't remove

Layout
1

I created a component placement routing with teardrops then modified the routing and while I can delete the traces and even the component, the teardrop geometry remains. I can’t select it, though hiding the copper layer hides it and hiding zones hides it along with the other teardrops. the zone outline view looks a little twisted and none of the repair tools seem to touch it and it gets exported in a layer export and shows in 3D view.

Is there any way to delete this other than starting over?

Screenshot from 2025-03-22 18-35-24
Screenshot from 2025-03-22 18-35-241101×837 35.4 KB

2

I don’t do much KiCad hacking but this is what I would try:

  • make backup copy
  • Delete everything (which excludes the zone as you can’t select it) and save
  • Open the .kicad_pcb file with a text editor
  • look for a zone, it might look similar to the one in the picture (this is a user-created zone)
  • take note of the “uuid” field
  • load the original file into text editor, search for the uuid
  • delete the zone

I still hope there may be a “canonical” way e.g. via the “edit / edit teardrops” menu.

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image968×576 9.53 KB

3

First, copy the version information from Help → About → Copy Version Info and paste it here. (Always when you ask a question about some problem or feature.)

Which tools exactly, and what options you tried?

If possible – unless the design is confidential – you could attach a problematic zipped project here. Preferably in a state before the problem, telling us exact steps which lead to the problem, so that anyone can follow the step by step instructions blindly and reach the same state.

1 Like
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Application: KiCad PCB Editor x86_64 on x86_64

Version: 8.0.9-8.0.9-0~ubuntu22.04.1, release build

Libraries:
	wxWidgets 3.2.3
	FreeType 2.12.1
	HarfBuzz 2.7.4
	FontConfig 2.13.1
	libcurl/7.81.0 OpenSSL/3.0.2 zlib/1.3.1 brotli/1.0.9 zstd/1.5.6 libidn2/2.3.2 libpsl/0.21.0 (+libidn2/2.3.2) libssh/0.10.6/openssl/zlib nghttp2/1.43.0 librtmp/2.3 OpenLDAP/2.5.18

Platform: Ubuntu 22.04.5 LTS, 64 bit, Little endian, wxGTK, X11, ubuntu, x11
OpenGL: NVIDIA Corporation, Quadro P1000/PCIe/SSE2, 4.6.0 NVIDIA 555.58.02

Build Info:
	Date: Feb 19 2025 14:24:54
	wxWidgets: 3.2.1 (wchar_t,wx containers) GTK+ 3.24
	Boost: 1.74.0
	OCC: 7.6.3
	Curl: 7.81.0
	ngspice: 43
	Compiler: GCC 11.4.0 with C++ ABI 1016

Build settings:

I cleared it, but I’m still not sure what created the problem. The solution was Edit->Edit Teardrops->[·] Remove teardrops->[OK] then redo by selecting [·] Add teardrops with default values for shape checked and the weird ones were deleted and all good ones recreated.

I did try to go through the .pcb file looking for teardrop coordinates and I think I found the entry, but being unfamiliar with the file format I tried the above solution rather than deleting the entry that seemed responsible and possibly creating some subtle file error that would bite me later.

The original file should persist in the sync version history store so I may be able to do a little more experimenting if that might help narrow it down, but for my needs this was a viable solution.

1 Like
5

Might this be related

6

That does look like the same issue. A work around is to delete all teardrops and then recreate them, which was fine for me as I didn’t customize them individually.