Yesterday I upgraded my footprint models from v8.0 to v9.0, according to KiCad 9.0 user’s manual. The process was painful because I kept getting an error message that was not clear. The “-o [–output] OUTPUT_DIR” must be set, but for many attempts I kept getting an error message saying that the output directory cannot overlap the current directory. That error message is unclear. Exactly what is “the current directory” in that context, and what constitutes “overlap”? I kept moving my current working directory within a Windows command shell but that made no difference in the dozens of attempts that I made. After many many attempts, I finally got a successful upgrade of footprints, as best as I can tell. BTW, those upgraded footprints were working for me yesterday but when I signed onto the same computer and the same KiCad project today, suddenly KiCad shows no models at all in my custom directory (though they were there yesterday and the files have not moved since then). As a result, I give a low satisfaction rating to upgrading footprints from KiCad 8.0 to 9.0. I am still fighting this process.
Hi @Whirlwind3D,
Is your above post about making your personally made/modified/imported footprints available to now use in Kicad 9, that were previously available to use in Kicad 8?
Yes. I apologize that I did not make that clear.
I wonder if this can be resolved by not using Dropbox as well.
I’m puzzled by your mention of -o output_dir as this implies a script. AFAIK .kicad_mod footprints can be used untouched in a new KiCad release without any conversion or export. All you have to do is register the library location using Manage Footprint Libraries. When I looked in the documentation output_dir is mentioned here:
https://docs.kicad.org/9.0/en/cli/cli.html#footprint_export
https://docs.kicad.org/9.0/en/cli/cli.html#footprint_upgrade
which talk about exporting to SVG or upgrading from a legacy format. Maybe that’s what happened to you?
The upgrade section says:
If the input library is already in the current file format, no action is taken.
So it’s a no-op trying to “upgrade” .kicad_mod files.