KiKit -- "no backend found" after Kicad 5 -> 6; permissions problem

[n8ur]

Prerequisites

• [X] I have read FAQ
• [X] I use the KiKit at least 1.0.4 (older version are not supported)

KiKit version

kikit, version 1.0.5

KiCAD version

6.0.7

Operating system

Linux Mint 21 Cinnamon

Description

I had KiKit working under KiCad 6 and Linux Mint 20. Update to Linux Mint 21 temporarily reverted to KiCad 5, then I updated to v 6.0.7. Everything in KiCad seems to be working correctly, but whenever PCBNew opens, I get the "backend not found" error.

After removing and reinstalling and problem persists, lightbulb finally came on and I did "sudo pip3 install kikit" and it now works. I think default KiCad configuration puts plugins in /usr/share which is not user writeable. I don't know if this is a relic of my KiCad update history, so not sure if it's really a bug, but noting that installing kikat as root may be necessary might save users a lot of head scratching.

Thanks!

Steps to Reproduce

Start pcbnew after the update sequence described above. Despite KiKit showing as installed in plugin manager, "backend not found" error comes up.

[yaqwsx]

Having non-writable locations for Python user installation is probably worth discussing with Mint package managers - whether it was an intention or a bug.

[n8ur]

Good point. I'll raise it with them, but I don't want to blame anyone because it might be the update path I've taken has screwed things up -- I remember having to fuss with the plugins directories to get plugins to work back several KiCad versions ago. I let you know more as a warning than anything else.

Thanks!

John

On 9/6/22 11:06, Jan Mrázek wrote:

Having non-writable locations for Python user installation is probably worth discussing with Mint package managers - whether it was an intention or a bug.

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[Anool]

This saved my day (and a lot of head scratching) on Ubuntu, so I think it doesn't affect just Mint users.

Ubuntu 20.04.5 LTS on 64 bit KiCad Application: KiCad

Version: 6.0.8-f2edbf62ab~116~ubuntu20.04.1, release build

Libraries: wxWidgets 3.0.4 libcurl/7.68.0 OpenSSL/1.1.1f zlib/1.2.11 brotli/1.0.7 libidn2/2.2.0 libpsl/0.21.0 (+libidn2/2.2.0) libssh/0.9.3/openssl/zlib nghttp2/1.40.0 librtmp/2.3

Platform: Linux 5.15.0-48-generic x86_64, 64 bit, Little endian, wxGTK, ubuntu, x11

Build Info: Date: Sep 30 2022 16:52:13 wxWidgets: 3.0.4 (wchar_t,wx containers,compatible with 2.8) GTK+ 3.24 Boost: 1.71.0 OCC: 7.5.2 Curl: 7.85.0 ngspice: 36 Compiler: GCC 9.4.0 with C++ ABI 1013

Build settings: KICAD_USE_OCC=ON KICAD_SPICE=ON

[yaqwsx]

I believe we have no way of fixing this in KiKit. If you know about a way, please, feel free to reopen the issue.