kicadiff (pback34) errors

3 recurring problems engineers report in kicadiff (pback34), ranked by impact.

#179 by errors trackedECAD

Recurring kicadiff (pback34) errors, by impact

  1. 1kicadiff check ran kicad-cli DRC against whatever zone fill was saved in the file, so a zone edited and saved without refilling, or a script-generated board, reports every pad the pour should connect as unconnected, which the designer never sees in the GUI. Checking a board against itself reported changes and exited 1. The --refill-zones fix only exists in KiCad 10, so KiCad 9 users get a warning instead.ECAD · Agent failure · 1 report74
  2. 2The board diff tool rendered a hard-coded layer set, front and back copper only. On a 4+ layer board, a change made only on an inner layer produced no visual diff at all, 0 changed pixels, and the exit code said nothing changed. There was no flag to work around it.ECAD · Agent failure · 1 report74
  3. 3Even with zones refilled, the tool's own example board reports +4 -4 on a diff against itself, because kicad-cli names different endpoints for the same unconnected net from run to run. The tool now matches by net name, which is the only stable thing.ECAD · Agent failure · 1 report66

How it fails

  1. Agent failure3

Sourced from public community reports. Costs and delays on individual entries are modeled estimates, not measurements.