KiCad 5.1: Graphic Text and net label on Eeschema changed to bold unexpectedly on the next session opening schematic after last edit

[Heru Himawan Tejo Laksono]

I am sure this is a bug. This randomly occurred. It is often, I edit a schematic, all graphic texts and net labels font-weight set into "normal" before saved, but next time I open such schematic then I get all graphic text and net labels are changed into bold unexpectedly. This is happened on KiCad 5.1 stable, whether compiled under Slackware 14.2 or under Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS.

[Wayne Stambaugh (stambaughw)]

Someone asked a question (https://answers.launchpad.net/kicad/+question/679055) about this but I have been unable to reproduce it. There must be some combination of text based objects and/or setting in the schematic file that is causing the issue that I'm missing. Would it be possible for you to post your project files to this bug report? If they cannot be shared publicly, would you be willing to send them to me privately? If not, then you will have to create a sample schematic that exhibits the issue so I can duplicate it.

[Heru Himawan Tejo Laksono (heru-htl)]

Here I send the related schematic example as attachment. This is free/open licensed work.

[Ionel (ionelcompact)]

Hi Wayne,

This happened to me as well on a few projects. I was not able to find exactly the cause for this bug, but I can assure you is very annoying.

Application: kicad
Version: (5.1.0)-1, release build
Libraries:
    wxWidgets 3.0.4
    libcurl/7.61.1 OpenSSL/1.1.1 (WinSSL) zlib/1.2.11 brotli/1.0.6 libidn2/2.0.5 libpsl/0.20.2 (+libidn2/2.0.5) nghttp2/1.34.0
Platform: Windows 8 (build 9200), 64-bit edition, 64 bit, Little endian, wxMSW
Build Info:
    wxWidgets: 3.0.4 (wchar_t,wx containers,compatible with 2.8)
    Boost: 1.68.0
    OpenCASCADE Community Edition: 6.9.1
    Curl: 7.61.1
    Compiler: GCC 8.2.0 with C++ ABI 1013

Build settings:
    USE_WX_GRAPHICS_CONTEXT=OFF
    USE_WX_OVERLAY=OFF
    KICAD_SCRIPTING=ON
    KICAD_SCRIPTING_MODULES=ON
    KICAD_SCRIPTING_PYTHON3=OFF
    KICAD_SCRIPTING_WXPYTHON=ON
    KICAD_SCRIPTING_WXPYTHON_PHOENIX=OFF
    KICAD_SCRIPTING_ACTION_MENU=ON
    BUILD_GITHUB_PLUGIN=ON
    KICAD_USE_OCE=ON
    KICAD_USE_OCC=OFF
    KICAD_SPICE=ON

[Wayne Stambaugh (stambaughw)]

@Heru, is the schematic in the archive you sent before you opened it with 5.1 or after? If it's after, would you please attached the before schematic was opened and saved with 5.1? If this is the original schematic file, do you remember what version of KiCad was used to save the file? The only other thing I can think of is something is corrupting the thickness value during editing and it is being saved as bold. The schematic that you sent have the text and labels are indeed set to bold.

[Heru Himawan Tejo Laksono (heru-htl)]

@Wayne, the unexpected change of font-weight into bold of graphic texts and/or net labels - is randomly occurred as I described. Sometime is normal when I open, but in some other times in opening then unexpectedly changed, and so that I must re-edit all graphic texts and/or net labels to set them to normal weight. The schematic in attachment is originally created, edited, and of course last saved with KiCad V 5.1.

Well, here the last edited schematic example attached with KiCad V 5.1.

Also, you or everyone my check the schematics from https://github.com/kicader/MATRIX-1.4-III/schematics/ whether they with something that may trigger the bug or not with KiCad V 5.1, since the devel' team personals of these schematics also encountered similar trouble in using KiCad V 5.1 that compiled from source under Ubuntu.

[Adrian Studer (astuder)]

I have the same issue. Happened to me twice within the last two days.

I'm pretty sure that the switch to bold happened at some unknown point while working on the layout. The first time I thought that I may have accidentally hit a hot-key. But the 2nd time I only had the layout open and when I closed the layout editor the schematic was open with all the text in bold. Maybe related to the Update PCB from Schematic feature?

I'm using the official (5.1.0)-1 release build for Windows 64 bit.

Attached the project where I encountered the issue (after the correction back to normal font weight)

[Wayne Stambaugh (stambaughw)]

@Heru, do you remember having the board editor open and performing an update PCB from schematic operation before this issue occurred? I still cannot trigger this bug so I'm sure that I'm not performing the correct steps. There is no board file in the project archive you provided so I'm a bit skeptical about Adrian's claims that it could be due to the update PCB from schematic operation but maybe you didn't include it in the archive. I would appreciate any information that you can provide that would help me reproduce this.

[Heru Himawan Tejo Laksono (heru-htl)]

@Wayne & @all, my apologist about to late to respond.
... @Wayne, as the schematic project in the project example that I sent - is without PCB design, without the KiCad board-file, it is, all I know that the time of the suspected bug occur whenever the schematic re-opened in Eeschema.
Well, this suspected bug very randomly occurred. Sometime, in example after I opened XXX.sch, then the suspected bug occur upon I open YYY.sch. Sometime, the suspected bug occur if I open the YYY.sch in which YYY.sch is linked as a sheet in XXX.sch of XXX.pro.
We can take the example as posted here: https://github.com/kicader/MATRIX-1.4-III/tree/master/schematics/800WRMS-MATRIX-1.4-III-CLASS-H-AUDIO-POWER-AMPLIFIER-LAB-VERSION :: The 800WRMS-MATRIX-1.4-III-CLASS-H-AUDIO-POWER-AMPLIFIER-LAB-VERSION.sch is linked as a sheet in ANALYSIS-800WRMS-MATRIX-1.4-III-CLASS-H-AUDIO-POWER-AMPLIFIER-LAB-VERSION.sch; When (but not ever, it is randomly) I open 800WRMS-MATRIX-1.4-III-CLASS-H-AUDIO-POWER-AMPLIFIER-LAB-VERSION.sch from ANALYSIS-800WRMS-MATRIX-1.4-III-CLASS-H-AUDIO-POWER-AMPLIFIER-LAB-VERSION.sch, the suspected bug occur. However, sometime if I open 800WRMS-MATRIX-1.4-III-CLASS-H-AUDIO-POWER-AMPLIFIER-LAB-VERSION.sch from the 800WRMS-MATRIX-1.4-III-CLASS-H-AUDIO-POWER-AMPLIFIER-LAB-VERSION.pro, the suspected bug also occur.

Unfortunately, I still have no time to deeply inspect the KiCad source code in order to find the root cause of this suspected bug ... (Wish I can do again like I did as I post in https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad/+bug/1304418 ...)

[Wayne Stambaugh (stambaughw)]

@Heru, is the project you submitted created on a version of kicad prior to 4.0.0? There was a bug in 5.0.0 (as well as nightly builds from 7/6/2016) that could have caused this issue but it only would happen under certain conditions when a version 2 or earlier schematic was opened. The problem is once you've opened a schematic under these conditions and saved the file using one of the broken versions of KiCad, it's too late as the bug happens when reading the file. This bug was fixed and release in 5.0.1. I'm not sure this was the problem but I suspect it is why I cannot duplicate it.

[Heru Himawan Tejo Laksono (heru-htl)]

@Wayne, the schematic example that I sent and that uploaded at https://github.com/kicader/MATRIX-1.4-III/tree/master/schematics/800WRMS-MATRIX-1.4-III-CLASS-H-AUDIO-POWER-AMPLIFIER-LAB-VERSION - are all created with KiCad V.5.1. Perhaps, if you ask another example that created with KiCad 5.0.x, you can take the https://github.com/kicader/MATRIX-1.4-III/blob/master/schematics/200WRMS-MATRIX-1.4-III-CLASS-B-AUDIO-POWER-AMPLIFIER.zip, which can be observed to find the cause of the suspected bug.

[Adrian Studer (astuder)]

@Wayne My project was originally created with KiCad 4.0.7 in May 2018. The 4.0.7 version of the project is available here:
https://github.com/wjpavalko/Maker-Buoy/tree/master/hardware/kicad

[Cassady Roop (cassady.roop)]

I am also experiencing this bug. I am running KiCad version 5.1.0, release build; wxWidgets 3.0.4 Unicode, Boost 1.69.0. My OS is Linux/Antergos, which reports platform as Linux 5.0.6-arch1-1-ARCH x86_64.

I have not noticed any obvious pattern to the incidence of the bug, and I do not know how to trigger it. It appears to occur randomly immediately after a save operation is initiated, but before it completes - so the bold-ed state of all the text objects gets saved to the file. It happens to me about once per day. I tend to place a lot of notes on my schematics so hunting down every text object, editing it, clicking Style:Normal or Style:Italic, and clicking 'OK' becomes painful quickly.

Graphic Text and Net Label items are affected. I do not know if Global or Hierarchical Labels are affected; I have not used any recently. Symbol properties such as RefDes and Value, including manually added notes, are not affected. Affected text will have its bold property set: if it was 'normal' it becomes 'bold'; if it was 'italic' it becomes 'bold and italic'. Text content and size is unaffected.

I'm not sure when the bug appeared because this is my first project in a while. I began to notice it last week, maybe 3 April? So far I have only used the schematic editor and symbol library editor on this project; I have not even opened the layout editor. This is a brand-new project, started on KiCad 5.1.0.

[Martin Jäger (martinjaeger)]

Happened to me aswell and I was able to reproduce it.

1. Clone the following repository: https://github.com/LibreSolar/MPPT-Charger_10A
2. Open the project file with KiCAD (5.1.0 under Manjaro Linux used here)
3. Open main schematic (here: mppt-10.sch).
4. Go to "Page Settings" and update the date with current date (<<<), tick "Export to other sheets" and hit OK.
5. Export PDF of entire schematic using File -> Plot -> Plot all pages (PDF selected).
6. Save schematic and restart KiCAD

Let me know if you need any further information to trace the bug.

Thanks,
Martin

[Wayne Stambaugh (stambaughw)]

Thank you Martin! It's the plotting that is causing the issue.

[KiCad Janitor (kicad-janitor)]

Fixed in revision 3d33cba5747c592403a5a3d47384d47bc8370aa4
https://git.launchpad.net/kicad/patch/?id=3d33cba5747c592403a5a3d47384d47bc8370aa4

[Martin Jäger (martinjaeger)]

Cool, thanks for the very quick fix and your awesome work on KiCad!

[Cassady Roop (cassady.roop)]

Wow, I never associated the error and plotting, but that sure does do the trick; good catch!

[Heru Himawan Tejo Laksono (heru-htl)]

Thank a lot for all ! :D

[E:V:A (e3v3a)]

I don't get it. It says fix commited, but what does it mean?
Has it been implemented in the latest release?

https://github.com/KiCad/kicad-winbuilder/releases/tag/5.1.2

[Wayne Stambaugh (stambaughw)]

"Fix Committed" means that the fix has been committed to the repo. "Fix Released" means the fix is available in a stable release. This should be "Fix Released" because it's available in 5.1.2. We just haven't run the script to update this yet.

[E:V:A (e3v3a)]

Ah! Thank you! This issue was driving me completely crazy!

[KiCad Janitor (kicad-janitor)]

Fixed in revision 3d33cba5747c592403a5a3d47384d47bc8370aa4
https://git.launchpad.net/kicad/patch/?id=3d33cba5747c592403a5a3d47384d47bc8370aa4