Problems with Game mode in Picochess

[Alexander Vogelmann]

Hallo together, I need help.

I installed on my raspberry Pi B+ pico chess and update it to vers. 0.65. That was easy. But now I have problems with Game mode Game, Kibitz and Analysis

I can choose the options on my DGT 3000 clock. But when I start normal Game Blitz, 15min, Stockfish Engine Step 5, it works. But after any moves, for instance the last move was white then the clock show me the time and the time don´t switch to black. And when i connected about the browser, i see complete an other structure on the board. But i do only legal moves.

If i use Kiebitz Mode than I can only do the firs move and i see the position score on the clock but the next move will be not excepted. 

What can be the problem? I have the internet connection and i have updated the pico chess. 

Thank you for your help.

[DJ Dekker]

Hello Alexander,

Do you see anything unusual in the log file?

Greetings,

DJ

[Alexander Vogelmann]

Am Samstag, 11. Juni 2016 22:28:34 UTC+2 schrieb Alexander Vogelmann:

No,

So i did this. I erase the card and installed the image 0.60 from pico chess. And it works fine. But after the command 

cd /opt/picochess

sudo git pull origin master  

sudo pip3 install --upgrade -r requirements.txt

I get the problems. After the update.

 

[DJ Dekker]

Hi Alexander,

If you installed PicoChess using the disk image, then you don't need to update manually (neither PicoChess itself nor the libraries in requirements.txt).

Does PicoChess also break if you install v0.60 and just let it auto-update to v0.65? You just need to uncomment #enable-internet in picochess.ini to allow auto-update (please don't uncomment the auto-reboot option, though!).

DJ

[Alexander Vogelmann]

I Uncomment only #enable-internet in picochess.ini   (enable-internet)

[Alexander Vogelmann]

Am Samstag, 11. Juni 2016 22:57:15 UTC+2 schrieb Alexander Vogelmann:

I Uncomment only #enable-internet in picochess.ini   (enable-internet)

Now I installed the vers. 0.60 and uncomment only the #enable-internet. Pico chess has update self to vers. 0.65 But i have the same problems.

Where can i download the 0.65 img from pico chess? I want only fix my wlan settings to figure out that it wirk fine. 

[DJ Dekker]

Where can i download the 0.65 img from pico chess? I want only fix my wlan settings to figure out that it wirk fine. 

You can find a minimal PicoChess 0.65 image, based on Raspbian Jessie, here:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9qWkOu8LbC8V1FGbFhpMk1hTk0

Please note that this 0.65 image -- just like the 0.60 image -- is meant for Raspberry Pi 2 and Raspberry Pi 3. It will probably not work correctly on Raspberry Pi 1 B+.

[Alexander Vogelmann]

I have the Raspberry Pi 2 Model B. It should work correctly or?

[Alexander Vogelmann]

I have download this omg and installed it on my pico chess. But i works not correctly. The same picture if i install the 0.60 vers, an update it to 0.65

I don´t know where the problem is.

[Jürgen Precour]

Hi Alexander,

sorry, i cant understand yr FIRST message.
Is picochess broken, if y update to the newest version and NOT using normal mode? Or broken on all modes? or .....or...

Next, there is a bug on newer versions, but this only happening on analysis & kibitz mode. It wont accept user move after first move. This sounds like yr problem too (but see first sentence).
On normal mode, y wont see this error. But im not sure, thats yr only problem. Hopefully, y can make it abit clearer to me. Thanks.

Jürgen

[sfke...@gmail.com]

Hello Mr Dekker,

I also tried the 0.65 version linked here, but (rarely) in normal game mode the RPi3 (on Jessie, up to date yesterday) freezes.

It definitely does in analyse, kibitz or observe mode:

From starting position I can make a move for white and see what Pico is thinking about.

Then I make a move for black and its game over. According to the clock's display, Pico sticks

to his move proposal. When I take back the "wrong" move and like to perform Pico's move, no change.

Starting a new game in analyse,..., mode play a white move and then the pico move, the evaluation

for the white side doesn't start either.

Is it a somehow known issue (didn't find hints in the forum)?

How can I find out where or when it get stuck?

Thanks for your advice

SFK3

Am Sonntag, 12. Juni 2016 07:31:11 UTC+2 schrieb DJ Dekker:

[DJ Dekker]

Hello Alexander, SFK3 and other PicoChess users who are experiencing the same problem,

This issue is really puzzling me. It certainly is not a known issue. I understand that you're using PicoChess v0.65 on RPi 3 with Jessie. Could you please try the v0.67 image:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9qWkOu8LbC8dUhqNHJ3NFBtRU0

To help you find a solution, I'd like to know the following:

1. which engine are you using?

2. could you please post your picochess.log file?

3. does PicoChess work correctly if you do not set up WiFi on you RPi3 at all?

Greetings,

DJ

[sfke...@gmail.com]

Hello DJ,

thanks for taking care.

Engine was SF at level 0 (one time also 20) no book.

It think it was the same with a 0.67 image, but I will setup from scratch with the image you have linked. Definitely the 0.65 lite image was less satisfying than the 0.67.

Which way of switch off if the wlan do you prefer - exclusion already on boot or after pico logon?

I will post a logfile end of the week, since my rpi is busy for test reasons on boinc at the moment.

Kindest regards

SFK3

[Alexander Vogelmann]

Hallo,

sorry for the break, i was in holiday. But after the update from 0.60 to 0.67 it works correctly.

Thanks.

[sfke...@gmail.com]

Hello DJ,

I checked with the linked image today:

Just downloaded it, unziped with 7xZ for Mac, restored it on SD with Apple Pi Baker.

No update on raspbian made, just started the RPi3.

Connected by eth0 and wlan0 still active it got stucked in all modes (analyse,kibitz,observe).

After reboot I sudo ifdown wlan0, but kept enth0 connected for ssh access.

There were hang-ups: not in the second half move, but roughly after a dozen and a half.

After a new re-start even without ent0 connected it worked.

Not seemlessly, but it worked: 

Analyze mode was okay.

Kibitz it was very laggy and didn't always confirm moves by a sound or "OK"-text. 

But if I "ignored" it and played further I saw that it's still working. And some seconds later, the beep also was back.

(BTW the pico ### text on start wasn't displayed at all).

Observe mode was also laggy and if I didn't pressed the clock's rocker switch the "OK"-text remain on the display.

But that should be fine if two humans play each other.

So, without any (inter)net(work) connection it worked - slow, sometimes laggy, but worked.

I have tried to find the picochess.log file you requested, but I didn't find it?!

Your hint is appreciated.

In the system's log file in /var/logs/ there are entries, reading like "picochess wrong mode: Kibiz" 

(as well as analyze instead of kibitz)

If you need more information or specific tests, kindly advice

Cheers

SFK3

[DJ Dekker]

Hi SFK3,

Thanks for your detailed reply. The delays that you are experiencing are unusual. Possible causes include:

* slow SD card (not class 10);

* problematic hardware connected, especially USB dongles and USB devices;

* the power adapter provides too little power for RPi3;

* the cable connecting the DGT board and DGT 3000 clock is damaged.

The PicoChess logs are in /opt/picochess/logs.

You can do some more tests:

1. Boot the RPi3, log in and stop the PicoChess service (sudo service picochess stop). Then start PicoChess at the command line: sudo python3 /opt/picochess/picochess.py. Do you still get the same laggy behaviour?

2. If so, ssh into your RPi3 while PicoChess is running and run the top command. Are there any processes getting stuck or eating CPU power?

Greetings,

DJ

[sfke...@gmail.com]

Hello DJ,

What a blunder!

Your hints were extremly helpful.

Since all hardware is brand new, in good shape and in a feasible spec., the troublemaker was quickly identified:

The active cooling conntected on the GPIO was the power thief (5V, 0.09A) - power supply is (just) 5V 2.1A.

It's disconnection solved the laggy response immediately.

Nevertheless I performed the proposed actions to see if performance will even increase.

That was not the case - at least not human measurable.

And now in TOP you can see that the "a-stockfish" process, which utilizes the Pi at 100% - is stopped while 

user's turn, and re-engage after.  I didn't see this with the fan active, it was always 100% and sometime even 103%(?!)

I aslo did a full Raspbian update (update upgrade & dist-upgrade) and Picochess is fully stable!

Only in case of making moves very,very quickly incl. takebacks and new moves immediately after,

the system lags a bit. But that"s ok - and maybe resolved after purchase of an even bigger power supply unit.

Concerning picochess.log file:

Since I didn't customize after copying the image to the SD card (as I wrote), it wasn't created.

Now it's active and in case of future issues I can provide.

I propose to have this option set on by default on new picochess images.

Remaining issues at the moment:

• No access to the webinterface
• Mailing of the games doesn't work: I checked the example ini file already. At ISP 1&1 port 587 is required for SSL mails and my GMX account is SMTP after POP. 

=> Don't worry, I will search the forum for help.

So please take my apologies for puzzling you and the picochess community,

kindest regards

SFK3

[DJ Dekker]

Hello SFK3,

Haha! Nice to read that your PicoChess is working now. :D

Thanks for your suggestion to auto-enable logging. I'll think about that one.

To enable the webserver you need to change this line in /etc/systemd/system/picochess.service:

ExecStart=/usr/bin/python3 /opt/picochess/picochess.py

into this:

ExecStart=/usr/bin/python3 /opt/picochess/picochess.py -web

This will work correctly on the next image.

I'm not sure how to solve your mailing issue. I believe that the smtplib library is using port 465 by default for SSL connections. Perhaps /opt/picochess/pgn.py should also try port 587 if port 465 throws an error. But I don't have enough knowledge of smtplib to say this for sure.

Greetings,

DJ

P.S. If you're seeing Stockfish using only 100% of your CPU, then you probably haven't set the threads parameter in picochess.ini. The maximum value for threads is 4, because your CPU has four cores. Increasing the number of threads will obviously improve performance.

[sfke...@gmail.com]

Many, many thanks DJ.

It's all working now.

Perfect.

Cheers

SFK3