Weird KiCad warning

jakketet · March 15, 2024, 9:41pm

Had this weird and quite cryptic warning a few times in PCB, have no clue where it points to…
I can’t pinpoint when it appears, seemingly random and my design works fine. Must admit it’s a design that went through quite a few nightlies but was finally imported in V8.
It also happens when opening the PCB.
What am I missing?

Application: KiCad arm64 on arm64

Version: 8.0.0-rc1-4-g5bc78f7d9f, release build

Libraries:
wxWidgets 3.2.4
FreeType 2.13.2
HarfBuzz 8.2.0
FontConfig 2.14.2
libcurl/8.1.2 (SecureTransport) LibreSSL/3.3.6 zlib/1.2.11 nghttp2/1.51.0

Platform: macOS Ventura Version 13.6.1 (Build 22G313), 64 bit, Little endian, wxMac

Build Info:
Date: Jan 14 2024 08:06:58
wxWidgets: 3.2.4 (wchar_t,wx containers)
Boost: 1.82.0
OCC: 7.7.2
Curl: 7.87.0
ngspice: 42
Compiler: Clang 14.0.3 with C++ ABI 1002

Build settings:

marekr · March 16, 2024, 2:12am

You should definitely upgrade your kicad version as you are still using the earliest 8.0 pre release

jakketet · March 21, 2024, 6:09am

Did the upgrade but it is still there. It is only when I select a footprint and select “Properties” (e) . Have no clue but I need to click it away if I want to continue. It is always there and not related to a particular project.

jakketet · May 5, 2024, 7:25am

I’m at 8.0.2 now and still have this error, the warnings are always the same structure, they are just the HH:MM:SS format but no other info is given, Even if I start a completely new Project it is still there, is there a way to know what is behind these messages, some log or other?
But now I have another problem…
While renaming a project in order to use parts of it for designing a slightly different version I got an “error”, maybe I’m just stupid but the annoying thing is that I cannot “close” this error because it continues lower than my visible screen and am not able to scroll till the end. So the only way to stop this is to force a stop of the Kicad program. I suppose this is only related to MacOS (still on Ventura here. Running on a Mac mini M1 with 16GB.
I ask first in this blog before I escalate and report these as bugs. Maybe somebody else has these problems and a solution…?

jakketet · May 5, 2024, 7:27am

another nice one… look at the screencap!

hmk · May 5, 2024, 7:57am

What does “View details” show?
Could it be that there is a newer package of 8.0.2?
Sometimes it happens that more than one binary package is built of the same version.

hmk · May 5, 2024, 8:05am

Is this in any way similar to the issue:

jakketet · May 5, 2024, 8:14am

yes, this is probably the same issue but I was not moaning about the “error” but about the fact that the pop-up window was larger than my screen and so I could not close it apart from restarting Kicad, as I said probably something typically Mac…

jakketet · May 5, 2024, 8:15am

Sorry did not look into “view details” but will do as it appears again.

jakketet · May 5, 2024, 8:22am

For info, my version that is installed now.

Application: KiCad PCB Editor arm64 on arm64

Version: 8.0.2-rc2, release build

Libraries:
wxWidgets 3.2.4
FreeType 2.13.2
HarfBuzz 8.3.0
FontConfig 2.15.0
libcurl/8.1.2 (SecureTransport) LibreSSL/3.3.6 zlib/1.2.11 nghttp2/1.51.0

Platform: macOS Ventura Version 13.6.1 (Build 22G313), 64 bit, Little endian, wxMac

Build Info:
Date: Apr 22 2024 20:20:08
wxWidgets: 3.2.4 (wchar_t,wx containers)
Boost: 1.84.0
OCC: 7.7.2
Curl: 7.87.0
ngspice: 42
Compiler: Clang 14.0.3 with C++ ABI 1002

Build settings:

jakketet · May 5, 2024, 8:26am

It seems there is a 8.0.2-1…
Pretty confusion but ok…

hmk · May 5, 2024, 8:27am

After the 8.0.2-rc2 that you have both 8.0.2 and 8.0.2-1 have been built, so it is highly likely that’s why you get the messages about a newer version with the same version number.

jakketet · May 5, 2024, 9:52am

Got another weird artifact… it’s probably the day for it…
See below:

I suppose you will notice these weird red artifacts on the right, these are leftovers from the previous pcb I used as template for a completely new design, I actually started with a previous design and deleted everything that I didn’t need, so I left the outline but made new “edges”
They ARE objects because when I zoom to “objects” I got the image you see…
BUT… I am unable to select them and remove them, I don’t see them in the 3D-view or in any layer, even after exporting the gerbers. So they sit there do nothing and are just annoying me.
It is not the first time I got this but with the previous (totally other) project they disappeared after some time, but this time no luck.

Enlarged

Again maybe somebody got the same problem here…so I ask before nagging the developpers.

I also include my file hereunder
lichtsturing.kicad_pcb.zip (27.6 KB)

hmk · May 5, 2024, 10:30am

Towards the end of the file, from line 7838 and onwards, you have a number of zones that have “teardrop” in their names, that seem to match the coordinates of your ‘artifacts’. (See below. The forum doesn’t reproduce the indentation properly, so I include a screenshot of the two first instances to show what it looks like in a text editor.)

Edit: Removing the lines from 7838 to the second last one removed the artefacts from the Board editor view too, and didn’t seem to immediately break anything.
lichtsturing_test2.kicad_pcb (147.6 KB)

Did you have some pads with teardrops at those coordinates in your old design? If so, it seems that the teardrops (smooth transition between pad and track) didn’t get removed when you deleted everything.
If you can reproduce this, perhaps even a minimal example project which demonstrates this behaviour, it might be interesting to see what produces this. Perhaps there is something that could be fixed in the code to avoid it.

(zone
(net 3)
(net_name “+5V”)
(layer “F.Cu”)
(uuid “1fe4d95c-d5d8-4e1e-bf18-f79e08dc52ab”)
(name “$teardrop_padvia$”)
(hatch full 0.1)
(priority 30018)
(attr
(teardrop
(type padvia)
)
)
(connect_pads yes
(clearance 0)
)
(min_thickness 0.0254)
(filled_areas_thickness no)
(fill yes
(thermal_gap 0.5)
(thermal_bridge_width 0.5)
(island_removal_mode 1)
(island_area_min 10)
)
(polygon
(pts
(xy 222.433216 81.450016) (xy 221.938242 80.955042) (xy 221.485788 81.736897) (xy 221.953672 82.419908)
(xy 222.522849 81.84853)
)
)
)
(zone
(net 3)
(net_name “+5V”)
(layer “F.Cu”)
(uuid “7c0b71b2-bf19-4e02-98ca-74d773f04e56”)
(name “$teardrop_padvia$”)
(hatch full 0.1)
(priority 30010)
(attr
(teardrop
(type padvia)
)
)
(connect_pads yes
(clearance 0)
)
(min_thickness 0.0254)
(filled_areas_thickness no)
(fill yes
(thermal_gap 0.5)
(thermal_bridge_width 0.5)
(island_removal_mode 1)
(island_area_min 10)
)
(polygon
(pts
(xy 221.604379 83.731701) (xy 222.304379 83.731701) (xy 222.522849 82.989872) (xy 221.954379 82.418201)
(xy 221.385909 82.989872)
)
)
)
(zone
(net 3)
(net_name “+5V”)
(layer “F.Cu”)
(uuid “a4c13cea-df0f-438c-bea8-e569604aa401”)
(name “$teardrop_padvia$”)
(hatch full 0.1)
(priority 30013)
(attr
(teardrop
(type padvia)
)
)
(connect_pads yes
(clearance 0)
)
(min_thickness 0.0254)
(filled_areas_thickness no)
(fill yes
(thermal_gap 0.5)
(thermal_bridge_width 0.5)
(island_removal_mode 1)
(island_area_min 10)
)
(polygon
(pts
(xy 219.005439 93.948674) (xy 219.605439 93.948674) (xy 219.873909 93.206845) (xy 219.305439 92.635174)
(xy 218.736969 93.206845)
)
)
)
(zone
(net 3)
(net_name “+5V”)
(layer “F.Cu”)
(uuid “e66e1721-6bd2-4533-ac02-9e9d95b227c7”)
(name “$teardrop_padvia$”)
(hatch full 0.1)
(priority 30004)
(attr
(teardrop
(type padvia)
)
)
(connect_pads yes
(clearance 0)
)
(min_thickness 0.0254)
(filled_areas_thickness no)
(fill yes
(thermal_gap 0.5)
(thermal_bridge_width 0.5)
(island_removal_mode 1)
(island_area_min 10)
)
(polygon
(pts
(xy 222.228709 80.664574) (xy 222.723684 81.159549) (xy 223.248989 80.987798) (xy 223.501167 79.887091)
(xy 222.90046 79.63927)
)
)
)
(zone
(net 3)
(net_name “+5V”)
(layer “F.Cu”)
(uuid “f69a5972-4f0c-40fe-8876-9b88b0b4cedd”)
(name “$teardrop_padvia$”)
(hatch full 0.1)
(priority 30006)
(attr
(teardrop
(type padvia)
)
)
(connect_pads yes
(clearance 0)
)
(min_thickness 0.0254)
(filled_areas_thickness no)
(fill yes
(thermal_gap 0.5)
(thermal_bridge_width 0.5)
(island_removal_mode 1)
(island_area_min 10)
)
(polygon
(pts
(xy 220.155976 91.387716) (xy 219.455976 91.387716) (xy 218.962994 91.912157) (xy 219.305439 92.637174)
(xy 219.892939 92.750475)
)
)
)
)

jakketet · May 7, 2024, 7:24pm

Indeed, the problem where these “teardrops” that I used in the previous version of this pcb. I did have a look at the file but did not know what to look for and certainly not these teardrops. So I enabled them again and automagically these artifacts disappeared!
I don’t know if this important enough to bump this to the developpers, if it is I may prepare a demo for this but not now because I’m rather busy for the moment, maybe after I send the design to the fabhouse.
And thanks for your time!