eeschema ERC: "Pin not connected..." error wrong (false positive) using hierarchical labels

[Dino Ghilardi]

In the attached file, there is a child sheet with a resistor connected to two hierarchical labels both named "a".

Running ERC the result is that a "false positive" on the connection for the two pins of the resistor is issued, but they are connected (verified synchronizing the schematic with the pcb)

Placing the correct hierarchical pin on the child sheet block makes this "false positive" disappear.

Cheers,
Dino.

--------------------------------
ERC report (mar 03 set 2019 14:08:06 CEST, Encoding UTF8 )

***** Sheet /
ErrType(6): Mismatch between hierarchical labels and pins sheets
    @(160,02 mm, 91,44 mm): Sheet label sheetPinNotConnectedInside is not connected to a hierarchical label.

***** Sheet /Sheet5D734418/
ErrType(6): Mismatch between hierarchical labels and pins sheets
    @(140,97 mm, 97,79 mm): Hierarchical label a is not connected to a sheet label.
ErrType(2): Pin not connected (use a "no connection" flag to suppress this error)
    @(152,40 mm, 97,79 mm): Pin 1 (Passive) of component R1 is unconnected.
ErrType(6): Mismatch between hierarchical labels and pins sheets
    @(140,97 mm, 105,41 mm): Hierarchical label a is not connected to a sheet label.
ErrType(2): Pin not connected (use a "no connection" flag to suppress this error)
    @(152,40 mm, 105,41 mm): Pin 2 (Passive) of component R1 is unconnected.

 ** ERC messages: 5 Errors 0 Warnings 5

----------------------------------------------------
Application: Eeschema
Version: (5.1.4), release build
Libraries:
    wxWidgets 3.0.2
    libcurl/7.52.1 OpenSSL/1.0.2s zlib/1.2.8 libidn2/0.16 libpsl/0.17.0 (+libidn2/0.16) libssh2/1.7.0 nghttp2/1.18.1 librtmp/2.3
Platform: Linux 4.9.0-8-amd64 x86_64, 64 bit, Little endian, wxGTK
Build Info:
    wxWidgets: 3.0.2 (wchar_t,wx containers,compatible with 2.8) GTK+ 2.24
    Boost: 1.69.0
    OpenCASCADE Community Edition: 6.8.0
    Curl: 7.52.1
    Compiler: GCC 6.3.0 with C++ ABI 1010

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

[Novak Tamas (novak-7)]

@michaelkavanagh did you experienced the issue?

I opened the schematic in a nightly dated end of Aug (14089) in Win10, and ERC didn't show any error.

For me it seems eechema is so sophisticated that it allows multiple labels of the same name on the hierarchical sheet, all are connected, and it displays only a single imported hierarchical label on parent sheet.

[Dino Ghilardi (dino-ghilardi)]

The issue is seen on 5.1.4 and 5.1.2 stable releases, but not in master branch (at least today).

Also it does not seem a big issue, since most of the times who uses hierarchical labels inside a sheet import the corresponding right pin in the parent sheet, but still is a "strange" behaviour.

@novak the nightly you tested was for the "master" branch or the "5.1" branch? (in the master branch I do not see this behaviour too)

[KiCad Janitor (kicad-janitor)]

KiCad bug tracker has moved to Gitlab. This report is now available here: https://gitlab.com/kicad/code/kicad/-/issues/2557