I can see the Python API being pushed to a new V6.1.x at this rate
How/where can I download the newest release candidate of KiCad 6? I am fully aware that there may be bugs left… But could there be bugs destroying Wndows? I assume not.
I am willing to take the risk of bugs, I will test on a simple project (more correct, a copy of it).
Windows 10, 64 bits, 24GB of memory, core-i5.
https://downloads.kicad.org/kicad/windows/explore/nightlies
updated a few times a day as the CD builds against the latest commits
I’ve been using KiCad 5.99 on projects for most of this year, and have not hit any serious problems. I update every month or so. Can only remember hitting one noticeable bug, but by the time I found it, I simply updated to the latest and it was fixed. Your mileage may vary, but my experience has been good.
I have tried once at Windows 10 (may be 2 month ago) and I had a problem to route few tracks. I pressed ‘X’ and in 3/4 times nothing happened and in 1/4 times I just could route a track. Didn’t found the reason for such behavior.
It was at my wife’s laptop. I have 2 PCs with Windows 7 and one with Windows XP so I can’t use KiCad pre-6.
Everyone makes their own decision about the update rate, but if someone wants to ask a question here about 5.99 or create a bug report, the version should definitely be up to date first.
The only big change for ordinary users before release candidates is to make the content manager fully usable. Therefore at the moment it’s pretty realistic to not update and still use KiCad without hitting bugs.
My experience pretty much mirrors yours. No major issues.
It seems Geographical BackAnnotate to schematic does not yet work.
The re-annotate of the PCB worked fine, it seems.
But the back annotation to schematic, “update schematic from PCB”, just gave “… not found” for every component/footprint. Did not work.
Time to create a bug report?
I should note that I’m running KiCad on Arch Linux. There is an AUR package for kicad-nightly that installs in parallel to KiCad 5 and works very well.
Yet another bug (I think):
Rotation of symbols in Schematic is lost.
When opened in 5.1.10:
When opened in the nightly build “kicad-msvc.r24563.bb5c58b3cf-x86_64.exe]”:
I think that the pictures speak for themselves.
A “stupid”(?) question: How do I create a bug report?
In your “Help” Menu, click on “Report Bug”
Note, we’ll ask you to attach the original 5.1.10 schematic, project, libraries, etc that are needed to recreate the issue.
Thanks Seth, I didn’t know either where to report, I have seen quite som things going on in the Mac version; BTW, I have started liking KiCad a lot mor during the passed days while been sitting intensively with it…
… But after registering/signing in to GitLab I don’t have a clue what to do there, why I’m in there… ah, now i see, after creating a GitLab account when clicking on “Report Bug” in Kicad it goes to the place where to do the reports, I guess…
1 Like
Oh no – it happened again! As mentioned yesterday I’ve started to like KiCad more after sitting intensively with it but now I don’t know if that’s still the case, this happens over and over again, runs fine for a few days, then goes wrong again, seems to be random and I have no idea why…
I have also removed the files in “~/Library/Preferences/kicad” and still doesn’t work, still the same popup error message “ERROR Environment variable path cannot be empty”.
The screencast isn’t completely clear but it looks like the path causing problems is the /Library/Application Support/.
Have you tried ‘escaping’ the space i.e.
/Library/Application\ Support/?
I also thing that ApplicationSupport (with no space) is symlinked into Application Support so you could try that too.
1 Like
Thanks John, quick and good ideas as usual from you! Though, before reading your reply I deleted ALL files again from the installation of KiCad (with “App Cleaner & Uninstaller Pro 6”) on this drive and tried to make a new install of version “kicad-unified-20211004-141409-eb819a3b25” = Version: (5.99.0-12680-geb819a3b25) but the same problem was still there, the same message popped up again/3d libraries did not work! So I removed every trace again and installed an earlier version of KiCad, which worked without that message/= I could change the paths in /Library/Application Support/ without messages. But as I want the latest possible version of KiCad I updated that “old” version to 5.99.0-12680-geb819a3b25 once again, and right now it’s working again (at least 5 minutes ago). The question now: Does this feel "safe”? and the answer is not at all.
Sure, I agree - that doesn’t sound safe but the point about ‘nightly’ builds is to pick up problems. If this is a consistent and repeatable error then it should be reported.
Yes, it seems to be repeated and I have reported this a few times here now. I will not report on GitLab, it’s not easy to understand.
It seems to me that your issue is likely caused by not understanding path variables in kicad. You have not clearly explained what it is you are doing that results in the issue. If you can find exact steps you take that reliably reproduce the issue it will help us help you.