Altium 22: white outlined stitching via restrained areas show even after all stitching vias are deleted

Question

I tried to use the auto stitching function and found out it could not stitch areas that have other polygons carrying different signals.

So I deleted all the auto stitching vias and redid them manually, but after I did that, Altium left white outlines for the restrained areas I defined for stitching vias. I can't select those outlines or delete them.

See white outlines the orange arrows point at:

I tried highlighting the stitching via union but there is nothing:

Some ghost vias show (13 count) but aren't highlighted:

Answer 1

First of all, although it is possible to remove via's from a Via Stitching Group, you should use Tools >> Via Stitching/Shielding >> Remove Via Stitching Group if you want to remove ALL vias. However, this command requires a stitching-via as 'target', but you don't have any left... The good news is that you can make vias reappear in an empty Via Stitching Group and then use Tools >> Via Stitching/Shielding >> Remove Via Stitching Group. To do that you have to make a change to the Via Stitching Group to trigger it to regenerate/update the Via Stitching Group and create new vias.

These steps should work:

• double left click on the via stitching and from the popup select Via Stitching
• now the Via Stitching Group should be selected
• the properties panel should display the properties of the Via Stitching Group
• make sure the Net of the Via Stitching Group is set to the net of the planes it covers
• make an 'arbitrary change' to the properties e.g. change Offset X to 1mm
• this will force recognition of a change to the Via Stitching Group
• in the top of the Properties Panel a message will appear 'Changes pending. Apply?' and to the right you can click 'Apply'or 'Cancel'.
• press Apply
• now it should create new vias in the Via Stitching Group (they appear as '<netname>[VSx]', so a postfix to the netname)
• now you can run Tools >> Via Stitching/Shielding >> Remove Via Stitching Group and select a newly created via in the Via Stitching Group

A change to the Via Stitching Group can also be triggered by selecting it (double-left click as above) and then dragging a handle of the area. You will then get a dialog box asking 'Re-generate via stitching?'. Press Yes.