No Output to DGTPi Display in No-Eboard Mode

[RandyR]

Did something change recently?

I did a fresh install of PicoChess using the RPiOS Lite image (13 Apr 2026 - there's a new release now available as of 21 Apr 2026) on the DGTPi and noticed the output to the clock display no longer shows when using no-eboard mode. Is this by design? I don't think it was always like this but perhaps my memory fails me. This could be an issue if you select no-eboard mode by mistake with no network available.

Randy

PS. Using master branch.

[Johan Sjöblom]

No, that is not intentional as far as I know. And without investigating I dont remember anything that could have changed or caused this. There should always be output to the clock.

Does my memory fail me or isnt there a setting like "dgtpi" to be true on a DGT Pi. When its true it should always send out the clock display on the internal Pi clock display.

I need to invesigate what the cause could be and make a hotfix if possible. Did you use the default dgtpi picochess.ini example I guess?

-- Johan

[Johan Sjöblom]

History points all the way back to a commit 8b98789a from February 2, 2023: Add "noeboard" board type to play via web UI

That commit changed startup from only skipping hardware in --enable-console mode to skipping hardware whenever board-type = noeboard. Before that change, dgtpi=True would still start DgtPi(...) unless console mode was used. After that change, no-eboard became effectively web-only, including no internal clock. The help text still says noeboard is “for basic web-play only” in configuration.py (line 392), which matches the code but not the DGTPi fallback expectation.

The fix we could do is:

• Start/register DgtPi whenever args.dgtpi is true, even in NOEBOARD.
• Only start DgtHw/serial board when board_type != NOEBOARD.
• Guard the I2C CLOCK_VERSION path so it does not start the serial board in no-eboard mode.

That should restore “always show something on the internal DGTPi clock” while keeping no-eboard web play behavior. It would make the following combination work where you have  DGTPi with clock display, no eboard, and play using a web client.

• dgtpi = True
• board-type = noeboard
• web-server = 80

I will open a issue for this. This is easy to fix. 

-- Johan

[Randy Reade]

That's great, Johan. I didn't realize it was always like that for no-eboard mode. I guess I've always used a standalone Pi when using no-eboard in the past.

Thanks for the quick find. No rush on the fix as it is now known.

Randy

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