Four connection points are joined together

What this error means

For every sheet, ERC collects connection points: the position of each symbol pin, and both endpoints of every wire and bus segment (graphic lines are skipped). Any point where four or more of these items land raises one violation. Since 9.0.3, stacked pins belonging to the same symbol count as a single item at their shared point.

Two things follow from that. Junction dots are irrelevant: four segments ending at one point trip the check with or without a dot, because wire ends that touch are connected either way. And a wire passing through the point contributes nothing, because only endpoints are counted — two continuous wires crossing without a dot put zero items at the crossing.

This is a style check, not an electrical one, and it defaults to Ignore: it only runs after you raise its severity in Schematic Setup → Electrical Rules → Violation Severity (under Connections). The convention it enforces: a four-way junction is one deleted dot away from silently becoming two unconnected pairs.

Common causes

1. Two wires cross and connect at a single dotted junction

The case the check was built for. Dropping a junction on a crossing splits both wires, leaving four segment ends at one point. The connection is real; the check objects because a reviewer cannot tell an intended four-way join from a dot added by accident.

2. A wire tap lands on a point already shared by a pin and two wires

Pins count as items, so dense routing can hit four without any crossing: a pin, the wire leaving it, and two more wire ends meeting at the pin's position. Common when a wire is drawn straight onto a pin that already has a T junction on it.

3. Stacked pins in one symbol, on KiCad 9.0.0–9.0.2

Early 9.0 releases counted every pin in a pin stack separately, so a symbol with stacked pins plus a couple of wires false-triggered the check. 9.0.3 started counting one pin per symbol per point. Stacked pins spread across different symbols still count individually.

How to fix it

Split the four-way into two three-way junctions

Hover one of the four wires near the junction and press G to drag its end.
Move the end one grid step (2.54 mm) along the wire it joins, so it taps in at its own point.
Re-run ERC (Inspect → Electrical Rules Checker).

Use when: All four connections are intended. The net is unchanged; the join is just spread over two points so no single dot carries it.

Make it a crossing instead, if the wires were never meant to join

Highlight the net (hover a wire, press backtick) and check what is actually connected.
Delete the four segments and the junction dot, then redraw each wire straight through the crossing in one stroke.
Re-run ERC and re-check the highlight: the two nets should now color separately.

Use when: The four-way was an accident — a junction dropped on what should be two independent wires crossing. This is the mistake the check exists to catch, so confirm with net highlighting before and after.

When it’s safe to exclude

This is the rare check where turning it off is a defensible default — KiCad itself ships it as Ignore. It enforces a drawing convention, not electrical correctness; a four-way junction is a valid connection.

If you enabled it, fix violations rather than excluding them one by one. If the warnings are noise to you, set the check back to Ignore in Schematic Setup → Electrical Rules → Violation Severity instead of excluding markers (right-click → Exclude) — a pile of exclusions hides the one four-way that really is a misplaced dot.

Gotchas

The report prints raw internal units, not millimeters: "Four items connected at 1117600, 1016000" means x = 111.76 mm, y = 101.60 mm. Divide by 10,000.
Removing the junction dot does not disconnect the wires. If four segment ends meet at the point, they stay connected and the check still fires. To truly separate them you have to redraw the wires so they pass through without ending there.
Bus segment endpoints are collected alongside wires, so a four-way bus junction trips the check the same way.

Version notes

KiCad 9.0: Check introduced in this release.

Minimal reproduction

Enable the check first: Schematic Setup → Electrical Rules → Violation Severity → Connections → set "Four connection points are joined together" to Warning. Then draw four wire stubs that all end at one point (a plus sign drawn as four strokes from the center outward) and run ERC (Inspect → Electrical Rules Checker). The center point reports:

[four_way_junction]: Four items connected at 1117600, 1016000
    ; warning

The coordinates are internal units; divide by 10,000 for millimeters.

The checked-in file data/erc/samples/four_way_junction.kicad_sch reproduces this with a square of wires plus both diagonals: the four diagonal ends meet at the center, and the companion four_way_junction.kicad_pro carries the severity override that turns the check on. Two embedded one-pin symbols give the net pins (a single-pin net trips pin_not_connected), which costs two lib_symbol_issues warnings about the missing repro library — an artifact of the self-contained repro. Deleting any one diagonal drops the center to three items and the violation disappears, which is the split-into-two-T-junctions fix in miniature.

FAQ

Why does KiCad warn about four-way junctions at all?

The check came from a feature request by teams that ban four-way junctions in review: a four-way join is one accidentally deleted dot away from becoming two unconnected pairs, and that mistake is hard to spot by eye. KiCad added the check in 9.0 but ships it as Ignore, so it only fires for people who opt into the convention.

Why is ERC reporting a four-way junction on a symbol with stacked pins?

KiCad 9.0.0 through 9.0.2 counted every pin in a pin stack as a separate connection point, so stacked pins plus two wires looked like a four-way junction. Updating to 9.0.3 or later fixes it; those versions count one pin per symbol at a given point. Stacked pins that come from different symbols are still counted one each.

If I delete the junction dot, are the four wires still connected?

Yes, if the wire segments end at that point — touching wire ends connect with or without a dot, and the violation stands. The dot is cosmetic confirmation, not the connection itself. To disconnect crossing wires, redraw each one as a single segment passing straight through, so no endpoint lands on the crossing.

Sources

Reviewed against KiCad 9.0.3 on September 23, 2026. Every claim on this page was checked with kicad-cli sch erc.