PicoChess 3.4 unable to connect chessnut go board

[Toni Latenz]

Hello everyone.

I am running Picochess 3.4 desktop on a raspy 4. I used the latest trixie images from 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cIONJkW7L_gNWkT9iFWM7IO0lRt_KdSW/view?usp=sharing

I have set the board to be of type chessnut, I have activated bluetooth on the raspy from the task bar.

I have put the board to be in pairing mode multiple times, waiting for Picochess to connect to it without any luck. Also I tried rebooting picoChess and switching on the board immediately after that, as recommended in another thread for the chessnut air.

Can someone point me to more options I can try?

Would it help to provide any log files?

 

[Randy Reade]

Chestnut can be difficult. I have an Air+. There are 2 things you can try. 

1. Reflash the Desktop image. Leave the board OFF. When the Pi finally boots and you hear the "Welcome to PicoChess" announcement (e.g., via connected speaker or HDMI monitor) use the web interface to select Chestnut in the System/e-Board menu. Check that Bluetooth is enabled (ON) using the icon at the top right. Reboot via the PicoChess menu or the RPiOS menu. When the Pi is booting up, turn ON the Chessnut board. It should be waiting to pair (blue light flashing). Wait until PicoChess finds it. It may take a while but not that long. If it doesn't connect and the blue light on the board stops flashing, turn the board OFF and reboot the Pi. Again, make sure the board is turned ON and in pairing mode as the Pi is booting. I have never had any luck connecting by just restarting the pairing mode on the board (without turning it OFF).

2. If you don't want to reflash and start over, then you will need to exit PicoChess, use a terminal to delete the /opt/picochess/chessnut_config.json file ('rm /opt/picochess/chessnut_config.json') and also the bluetooth folder on the Pi using the command 'sudo rm -rf /var/lib/bluetooth' then reboot and again turn the board ON as the Pi is booting (or it should also connect if you turn the board ON after PicoChess has started).

Randy

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[Toni Latenz]

Hi Randy, thank you for your tips.

I was able to have the chessnut go board connect several times, but far from stable or reproducible. I then followed your advice and reflashed the sd card. Verification of the written files was ok.

When starting the pi, it ran into some errors related to the filesystem, it also did that with my previous attempts. I restarted, and eventually it went into the desktop ui.

This time however, picochess did not start with the message 127.0.0.1 refused to connect.

Here is the output of "systemctl status picochess":

pi@picochess:~ $ systemctl status picochess
× picochess.service - PicoChess Chess Program
     Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/picochess.service; enabled; preset: en>
     Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Mon 2026-01-05 03:41:25 CST; 1min>
   Duration: 9.269s
 Invocation: 0ffaced4a19f419a854d3f71e2f82a90
    Process: 1026 ExecStart=/home/pi/.pyenv/versions/picochess-3.9.2/bin/python>
   Main PID: 1026 (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
        CPU: 3.697s

Jan 05 03:41:24 picochess python3[1026]:   File "/home/pi/.pyenv/versions/picoc>
Jan 05 03:41:24 picochess python3[1026]:     config_items = self._config_file_p>
Jan 05 03:41:24 picochess python3[1026]:   File "/home/pi/.pyenv/versions/picoc>
Jan 05 03:41:24 picochess python3[1026]:     for i, line in enumerate(stream):
Jan 05 03:41:24 picochess python3[1026]:   File "/home/pi/.pyenv/versions/3.9.2>
Jan 05 03:41:24 picochess python3[1026]:     (result, consumed) = self._buffer_>
Jan 05 03:41:24 picochess python3[1026]: UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can'>
Jan 05 03:41:25 picochess systemd[1]: picochess.service: Main process exited, c>
Jan 05 03:41:25 picochess systemd[1]: picochess.service: Failed with result 'ex>
Jan 05 03:41:25 picochess systemd[1]: picochess.service: Consumed 3.697s CPU ti>
lines 1-19/19 (END)...skipping...
× picochess.service - PicoChess Chess Program
     Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/picochess.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
     Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Mon 2026-01-05 03:41:25 CST; 1min 15s ago
   Duration: 9.269s
 Invocation: 0ffaced4a19f419a854d3f71e2f82a90
    Process: 1026 ExecStart=/home/pi/.pyenv/versions/picochess-3.9.2/bin/python3 /opt/picochess/picochess.py (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
   Main PID: 1026 (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
        CPU: 3.697s

Jan 05 03:41:24 picochess python3[1026]:   File "/home/pi/.pyenv/versions/picochess-3.9.2/lib/python3.9/site-packages/configargparse.py", line 589, in parse_known_args
Jan 05 03:41:24 picochess python3[1026]:     config_items = self._config_file_parser.parse(stream)
Jan 05 03:41:24 picochess python3[1026]:   File "/home/pi/.pyenv/versions/picochess-3.9.2/lib/python3.9/site-packages/configargparse.py", line 163, in parse
Jan 05 03:41:24 picochess python3[1026]:     for i, line in enumerate(stream):
Jan 05 03:41:24 picochess python3[1026]:   File "/home/pi/.pyenv/versions/3.9.2/lib/python3.9/codecs.py", line 322, in decode
Jan 05 03:41:24 picochess python3[1026]:     (result, consumed) = self._buffer_decode(data, self.errors, final)
Jan 05 03:41:24 picochess python3[1026]: UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0xb4 in position 2: invalid start byte
Jan 05 03:41:25 picochess systemd[1]: picochess.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Jan 05 03:41:25 picochess systemd[1]: picochess.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Jan 05 03:41:25 picochess systemd[1]: picochess.service: Consumed 3.697s CPU time.


Any idea why that is, how to correct that?

I am pretty much fed up with reflashing. :)

[Toni Latenz]

Ok, I got most of that sorted.

I redownloaded the image from here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cIONJkW7L_gNWkT9iFWM7IO0lRt_KdSW/view

Reflashed, this time no errors on first boot. Did reboot on it´s own. Picochess web interface is starting. 

I was able to connect the chessnut go after turning on bluetooth on the task bar. Now, here is the thing:

Why is "systemctl status bluetooth.service" showing the bluetooth service as running, enabled etc. but the task bar icon is switched off?

Why is it switched off after every reboot? I ordered a 7" screen to attach, and I do not plan to always connect keyboard and mouse to activate bt on the taskbar. It should be always on, even after rebooting the system.

Any help on that would be appreciated.

Tino

[Randy Reade]

Hi Tino,

I don't know why BT would turn OFF after every reboot. What does 'rfkill list' show?

I think your previous problems were caused by a corrupted download, faulty SD card, or some kind of hardware issue. What program did you use to flash the image?

Did you set up your locale using raspi-config?

Does 'journalctl -b' show any errors in the system log?

Randy

On Mon, Jan 5, 2026, 6:35 a.m. 'Toni Latenz' via PicoChess <pico...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Ok, I got most of that sorted.

I redownloaded the image from here: