Once updated, kicad can't find symbols anymore. The symptoms are : * symbol editor : a pop window "load error" with errors like "Error loading symbol library 74xGxx." * schematic editor: you can't update or edit symbols * pcb editor : you can't update or edit footprints * 3d view : all components gone According to the error messages: kicad search for symbols in /usr/share/kicad/library/, but sci-electronics/kicad-symbols-6.0.0_rc1 <200b>installs in /usr/share/kicad/symbols kicad search for footprints in /usr/share/kicad/modules/, but sci-electronics/kicad-footprints-6.0.0_rc1 installs in /usr/share/kicad/footprints/ In the main window, under menu entry "Preferences"/"configure path", the 'old' paths are using KICAD_* env names, and KICAD6_* are used for the new paths. I don't understand how this is supposed to work, why there are both names, why kicad6 still uses KICAD_* (non-6) env variables. Fact is, the whole thing is broken, and I dont know what/how to fix. Reproducible: Always
Actually I think we're not supposed to change those env variables, as was my first guess. But somehow we should tell kicad to use the 'new format' (.kicad_sym, ..others?), and drop the old ones. But i dont know how to do that.
As a reminder for myself, and hopefully useful for others, here's what I did to get a somewhat working kicad 6. ('remove' really means 'remove but backup just in case', i'm not responsible for anything) 1) quit kicad 2) in ~/.config/kicad remove sym-lib-table, fp-lib-table, and the 6.0 directory if present 3) start kicad. you are prompted to "How would you like to configure KiCad ?". Use the default (import settings from a previous version). But UNCHECK "Import library configuration from previous version". 4) click on 'symbol editor'. It should ask to configure global symbol library, keep the default ('recommended') and click ok. 5) close the 'symbol editor' and opens 'footprints editor', does the same. For 3d data, i'm less sure of how it should be done. I did that and it works, but that feels 'bad': in the main window, menu "Preferences"/"configure path", i copied the value for KICAD6_3DMODEL_DIR: "/usr/share/kicad/3dmodels/ and put it in the env KISYS3DMOD
So other distro's are shipping an /etc/profile.d/ script to set these. Likewise if there is no existing settings kicad will seed ~/.config/kicad/6.0 There appears to be a gap in the migration. an elog might be ideal rather than having an /etc/profile script
I just opened a bug upstream: https://gitlab.com/kicad/code/kicad/-/issues/9826
Fixed in 6.0.0.
I did a quick test, and indeed it seems fixed. Thanks a lot !
