Picochess 4.2.2 is now out for testing

[Johan Sjöblom]

The new features are:

- DJ Dekker has added support for chess variants

- I added the possibility to use the mobile phone as a speaker. You can now get all backend sounds from the picotalker to your mobile phone browser if you want.

To use the mobile phone as a speaker you have to do two things:

- web-audio-backend-remote = true

- open a mobile phone browser to the ip address of your Pi4

In this situation the backend sound will be sent to the mobile phone. Due to how mobile phone handles sounds in web browsers you have to click unmute once to activate the sound.

You can change the web-audio-backend-remote to true either by editing your picochess.ini and adding it, or by opening the settings icon from the web menu and checking the appropriate check box under the bluetooth settings tab.

-- Johan

Here is the complete list of all 47 commits in February from 4.2.1 to 4.2.2

7ce92efc 2026-02-02 Clarify the quick connect button for wifi onboarding
4652611a 2026-02-02 Add spacing below quick connect
12e53f36 2026-02-02 Hotfix: guard play stop before search start
39e74e72 2026-02-03 Add touch flags for Wayland kiosk
c1a46f40 2026-02-03 Revert "Add touch flags for Wayland kiosk"
f119ffcf 2026-02-03 Add more debug logging so that I can catch a race condition in the new chess library
3e65f886 2026-02-03 Hotfix: Protect against double go calls
e9f53b5c 2026-02-03 Hotfix: protect against calling the chess library stop too fast after move go
a891b471 2026-02-03 Hotfix: protect against re-starting think/go to fast for the library after user requested an alternative move.
822125d5 2026-02-03 Hotfix: debounce engine think after takebacks
39508381 2026-02-14 Keep native audio stream open for clip playback
122e8e71 2026-02-16 Start native audio stream with initial silence
19fe36ca 2026-02-16 Close native stream on write failure so it restarts next clip
f481821f 2026-02-19 Install pipewire-alsa
78d3bff5 2026-02-19 Fix issue #266
45ae593f 2026-01-31 Add Fairy-Stockfish 3check variant support
7cda2efb 2026-01-31 Fixes for game result, PGN header, check counter
c83f3cce 2026-02-01 Correcties voor move takeback en PGN notatie
405a904c 2026-02-01 Fix UCI command
a2f66dd6 2026-02-01 'King of the hill' implementation
3d010196 2026-02-01 Adding chess variant 'atomic'
80e10780 2026-02-01 Fix explosion logic for atomic
4a69859a 2026-02-02 Fix FEN comparison for atomic variant explosions
4aaf1dc4 2026-02-02 Fix: create correct board type for chess variants
056e8067 2026-02-07 Fixes for atomic variant
2278cfba 2026-02-09 Atomic: additional fixes for web display
4b0ad129 2026-02-11 Make sure legal Atomic FENs are considered legal
b0e1f831 2026-02-11 Add description in README
2a685c5e 2026-02-13 Prevent duplicate PGN notation
77d49540 2026-02-14 Hide finger cursor in atomic
23a64440 2026-02-15 Implement 'Racing Kings'
9cbbf535 2026-02-21 Fix DGT variant reset for normal chess new games
32951354 2026-02-21 Reset board when leaving Racing Kings variant
9f652cc9 2026-02-21 Reset web variant state when returning to normal chess
5bd51d31 2026-02-21 Fix test cases
63de4f02 2026-02-21 Reset board when leaving Atomic variant
f2c3433e 2026-02-19 Add web-audio-backend-remote to stream PicoTalker audio to mobile web clients
6143c73d 2026-02-21 Start muted for UX consistency and make backend audio default on new installations
51b960d5 2026-02-21 Prioritize local audio playback and emit web audio only for connected remote clients
b3d451da 2026-02-21 Do not emit web audio as default in new installations
d636ca9b 2026-02-21 set web-audio-backend-remote default to false
22678e89 2026-02-21 add bluetooth tab toggle for phone web audio setting
a2cf263c 2026-02-21 fix mobile auto-scroll during move/audio updates
51c2a71f 2026-02-21 route picotalker audio to one output when remote web speaker is active
eb911d1b 2026-02-21 Version 4.2.2
adca68d7 2026-02-21 Fix 3check counter
2c94b222 2026-02-21 Update README

[Francois Vannier]

Hi Johan & all,

I just upgraded from v4.2.1 to v4.2.2 via the system menu, and the sound/speech is no longer working. I am using the local web I/F. I tried with a remote browser, same, totally silent.

HW = Pi 4b + speakers on the jack + DGT BT board.

Log attached.

Thanks.

Kr,

Francois

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[Johan Sjöblom]

The first thing that comes to mind is that you could uninstall alsa-pipewire. Its the only change we did to "normal" sound. 

Do you use pulseaudio?

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[Francois Vannier]

I have no idea how to check for pulseaudio. Looking at the task manager, I did not see any process obviously related

How to uninstall "safely" alsa-pipewire ?

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[Randy Reade]

Type 'alsamixer' in the terminal. What does 'Card:' indicate?

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[Francois Vannier]

PipeWire

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[Randy Reade]

If you have a monitor attached, ensure the speaker icon is set to AV jack. If no monitor, enable VNC (ensure you are using wayland) and use something like RealVNC Viewer to check. pipewire-alsa uses whatever PipeWire/Wireplumber is set to, which can be see by the command 'wpctl status'. look under Audio/Sinks: The asterisk will show the default output.

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[Johan Sjöblom]

Hello Francois.

Your log shows that your picochess.ini has audio-backend = sox. 

I recommend changing that to audio-backend = native.

You can do that from the web menu settings icon or by editing the picochess.ini file.

Sox play probabably did not like it when we installed alsa-pipewire... but there could be other reasons. The best move for everyone is to now use the audio-backend = native. Its also default for new installations.

-- Johan

[Francois Vannier]

I have a monitor attached with speakers as well & no sound either, whatever audio configuration I am setting in raspberry-config.

I have no speaker icon on the system bar or desktop. Typing the 'wpctl status' command brought this:

PipeWire 'pipewire-0' [1.4.2, pi@picochess, cookie:2339234581]
 └─ Clients:
        33. xdg-desktop-portal                  [1.4.2, pi@picochess, pid:1522]
        34. PipeWire ALSA [sox]                 [1.4.2, pi@picochess, pid:1668]
        36. wpctl                               [1.4.2, pi@picochess, pid:2690]

Audio
 ├─ Devices:
 │  
 ├─ Sinks:
 │  
 ├─ Sources:
 │  
 ├─ Filters:
 │  
 └─ Streams:
        35. PipeWire ALSA [sox]                                        

Video
 ├─ Devices:
 │  
 ├─ Sinks:
 │  
 ├─ Sources:
 │  
 ├─ Filters:
 │  
 └─ Streams:

Settings
 └─ Default Configured Devices:

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[Johan Sjöblom]

Ah, good information. You should switch to native setting but with this information I see that it will not help. We need to do something else as well.

[Johan Sjöblom]

Run wpctl status

[Johan Sjöblom]

and aplay -l

These both commands should list what you have.

[Randy Reade]

Is this on Bookworm? I don't think you can change audio any more in Trixie in raspi-config. It looks like pipewire isn't running.

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[Johan Sjöblom]

There are no Audio Devices, Sinks, Sources... Pipewire might be running or not, but there is no place for the sound to go.

restart the services (probably wont help if you already rebooted)

systemctl --user restart wireplumber pipewire pipewire-pulse

or reinstall the sound services and then reboot:

sudo apt install --reinstall wireplumber pipewire pipewire-pulse pipewire-alsa libspa-0.2-alsa alsa-utils
and reboot

and... I still recommend strongly to set audio-backend = native in picochess.ini, otherwise pipewire might not work.

[Francois Vannier]

I have added in picochess.ini the line ''audio-backend = native". Still no sound but the wpctl status output changed to this:

PipeWire 'pipewire-0' [1.4.2, pi@picochess, cookie:2666893010]
 └─ Clients:
        33. xdg-desktop-portal                  [1.4.2, pi@picochess, pid:1554]
        34. PipeWire ALSA [python3.13]          [1.4.2, pi@picochess, pid:957]
        36. wpctl                               [1.4.2, pi@picochess, pid:1818]

Audio
 ├─ Devices:
 │  
 ├─ Sinks:
 │  
 ├─ Sources:
 │  
 ├─ Filters:
 │  
 └─ Streams:

        35. PipeWire ALSA [python3.13]                                  

Video
 ├─ Devices:
 │  
 ├─ Sinks:
 │  
 ├─ Sources:
 │  
 ├─ Filters:
 │  
 └─ Streams:

Settings
 └─ Default Configured Devices:

About raspi-config, my mistake, I am on V4/Trixie.

The 'aplay -l' command output:

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: Headphones [bcm2835 Headphones], device 0: bcm2835 Headphones [bcm2835 Headphones]
  Subdevices: 8/8
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
  Subdevice #1: subdevice #1
  Subdevice #2: subdevice #2
  Subdevice #3: subdevice #3
  Subdevice #4: subdevice #4
  Subdevice #5: subdevice #5
  Subdevice #6: subdevice #6
  Subdevice #7: subdevice #7
card 1: vc4hdmi0 [vc4-hdmi-0], device 0: MAI PCM i2s-hifi-0 [MAI PCM i2s-hifi-0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 2: vc4hdmi1 [vc4-hdmi-1], device 0: MAI PCM i2s-hifi-0 [MAI PCM i2s-hifi-0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

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[Johan Sjöblom]

OK, its better, but as expected pipewire still has no Devices/Sinks... so this is the best cure to reinstall:

sudo apt install --reinstall wireplumber pipewire pipewire-pulse pipewire-alsa libspa-0.2-alsa pipewire-audio
and then reboot...

[Johan Sjöblom]

I tried to find a root cause, and still the only thing I can think of is the new installation of the pipewire-alsa. We dont have 100% proof but that is the best suspect that caused your pipewire to be confused.

install-picochess will now skip that library installation if user is updating from within menu, or gives "pico" parameter to install-picochess.sh

I also updated README to state the need to change to native setting when upgrading.

But we still have to get your sound system back to a functional sound system Francois. You are now missing a Device/Sink for your pipewire so it cannot produce sounds... Can you try playing music or youtube or any other sound? I am guessing its not a picochess code issue, its a system sound issue.

[Randy Reade]

I updated from v4.1.9 today by running './install-picochess.sh pico' twice (which you should always do, I think) and sound is working. It's a Pi5 inside a monitor case so slightly different scenario. But, pipewire-alsa only gets installed the second time running the update.

Randy

[Francois Vannier]

Reinstalling pipewire-alsa stopped with 2 errors:

Error: Unable to locate package libspa-0.2-alsa
Error: Couldn't find any package by glob 'libspa-0.2-alsa'

I tried to play music with vlc, nothing happens whatever the audio device selected.

I'll try to reinstall twice as Randy suggested.

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[Johan Sjöblom]

Ah yes, the old 4.1.9 install does not install pipewire-alsa, but the second run uses the latest install-picochess and installs it.

So could the problem have been the opposite... That the library did not cause problems, but the lack of the pipewire-alsa library is the problem?

[Johan Sjöblom]

Ok, corrected reinstall command for Francois:

sudo apt install --reinstall pipewire pipewire-pulse pipewire-alsa wireplumber libspa-0.2-modules alsa-utils

Maybe libspa-0.2-modules exist as libspa-0.2-alsa did not exist

[Johan Sjöblom]

Just to be clear, your picochess installation is not broken, your sound system is broken. That's why nothing plays.

[Randy Reade]

I don't think so. Especially if sound was working before. But you now need to be sure PipeWire is selected to the right output. Hard to do if there's no speaker icon. It sounds like a config file somewhere is interfering (/etc/around.conf or /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf). A fresh install of RPiOS might be quicker. 🤔

'dmesg | grep -i snd' might be useful

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[Francois Vannier]

I reinstalled picochess with the command line, twice.

I applied Johan's new reinstall command, no error.

wpcl status unchanged & no sound.

I did not dispute it's a broken sound system. Though, it was working nice in 4.2.1 & just a picochess menu upgrade did break it.

Shall I restart fresh from a v4 image and applied the upgrade commands ?

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[Randy Reade]

If it was me, I would install the latest RPiOS Desktop then install PicoChess v4. It's the OS that is messed up.