Symbol editor - move item/s in unit A, causes unrelated items in unit B to move?

[julian1]

I have a symbol with two units.

I can move (for example) some pins in a unit, to align them with the edge of the component outline. When I later swap views to look at the other unit - I see that unrelated pins have also moved position.

Likewise for the component outline, and designator text.

So there's some kind of weird coupling between the graphical positions of objects. It's absolutely undesirable and infuriating. There is no coupling parameter in any preference or setting that I can find.

The movement is also indeterminate. Sometimes half-a-dozen unrelate pins will move, sometimes one. Sometimes they move different distances. So it's *not* like there is some shared origin that's being used as a common offset reference. Instead it is completely random.

[julian1]

Ok, I've narrowed down the behavior. If I select pin 22 in unit A and move it, then pin 11 in unit B will move. Likewise moving pin 6 in unit A, will also move pin 21 in unit B. The coupling also works in reverse. But no other pins are affected - at least without making any other changes.

Opening the *.lib file, it looks like the pins share the same co-ordinates, only they are in different units. Eg. the unit field is the 3rd from the right - eg. 1 or 2 for unit A or unit B, but otherwise the coords and representation are the same.

X IOR_38 22 650 200 150 L 50 50 1 1 B
X JJJ         11 650 200 150 L 50 50 2 1 B
 
X IOL_4B 6 650 -400 150 L 50 50 1 1 B
X GND   21 650 -400 150 L 50 50 2 1 W

So it looks like the hit-testing/focus criteria is not adequately discriminating  - and just uses the extents without regard to which unit is in the current view.

Perhaps, if nobody else recognizes or has seen this behavior before, then its just an edge-case bug, and perhaps even limited to the version I am running.

[poeschlr]

My guess is you enabled syncronized pin edit mode. This means you set "all units are interchangeable" in the symbol properties. Make sure you really want that.

From https://forum.kicad.info/t/tutorial-how-to-make-a-symbol-kicad-v5-1-x/13336/6 section: "Multi unit symbol for the dual operation amplifier L272M" -> "Adding signal pins"

[julian1]

Awesome thanks! You got it. Just checked and that button was indeed turned on. After turning it off, everything behaves without coupling behavior.

In settings, I have "All units are *not* interchangeable" and it is unchecked. Not sure if that is the desirable setting. The library was pulled in from an ancient (5 year old) github repo.

[poeschlr]

Without "All units are *not* interchangeable" selected kicad assumes it can exchange units freely. Which is only an option if all units are identical (except pin numbers). Meaning all pins are on the same position and have the same function over all units (example 4 units of a quad OR gate, but this requires power pins on every unit at the same place so kind of useless to be honest).

So in all likelihood the fact that this is not selected is a mistake made by however made the symbol.