problem 34415

[mgirkar]

It appears that problem 34415 has the wrong solution starting from the second move.  After 1. Nd6 Rg3, I checked with Fritz and the right move is 2. Qxg3 or 2. Qa8+, but the solution given seems completely wrong 2. Rc8+ followed by more bad moves.

[richard]

I suspect you have set the position up incorrectly on fritz.  The thing that makes me fairly sure of this is that 2. Qa8+ is not possible, there is a black rook on c8 that prevents this from being a check so I suspect you didn't place the rook when you set up the position (this is the same rook that 2. Rc8+ takes). 2.Qxg3 is ok but wins less material (so is an allowed alternative), but the real problem here is probably the way you set the position up, try again and see if you get the same result from fritz. If so let me know and I'll investigate further.

Regards,
Richard.

[tmr]

I was just about to make the same comment as Richard.  2. Qa8+ isn't possible.

[drahacikfm]

If you have the silver or gold membership, you can cut and paste the PGN or FEN notation directly into Fritz so that it takes only a few seconds to set up the position, and there will never be a mistake setting it up.

[mgirkar]

Yes, I had made a mistake in omitting the black rook at c8.  It may have been a diagram display bug because I definitely spent something like 15 minutes evaluating both Qxg3 and Qa8+ before getting it wrong and putting it in Fritz for confirmation.  If it was a bug I can't reproduce it now.

[richard]

Hi mgirkar,

I've had one other user mention that he thought not all the pieces were being displayed. I haven't had any other reports and I haven't been able to reproduce it myself, but it does sound like it might be an issue with rear operating system/browser combinations.  Have you ever seen this on other problems and which operating system and browser (and versions) are you using?

Thanks,
Richard.

[mgirkar]

No, I haven't seen it on other problems.  My current system is XP Professional version 2002 service pack 2, browser is IE 6.0.2900.2180.xpsp.060411-1541

[richard]

Ok, thanks for the report, please let me know if you notice anymore "disappearing" pieces.  Especially while the tactic is live (there is an annoying bug once the tactic is over, where pressing the next/prev buttons very quickly back and forth for multiple times can cause the board to lose track of the taken state of a piece and can therefore not display it until you move backwards and forwards again, however this doesn't sound like the problem you had).

Regards,
Richard.

[argentum]

Hi mgirkar,

I've had one other user mention that he thought not all the pieces were being displayed. I haven't had any other reports and I haven't been able to reproduce it myself, but it does sound like it might be an issue with rear operating system/browser combinations.  Have you ever seen this on other problems and which operating system and browser (and versions) are you using?

Thanks,
Richard.

Hi,

I think I saw the bug when all pieces are not displayed. It occurred when I was fast rewinding from the final position to the beginning. If you use keyboard cursor left key quickly to go back to start position the some pieces may be missing.

If you move quickly you can see several pieces to animate simultaneously. Not like one move animation to finish before the next begins. It means that there is sort of list of moving pieces in the code. Let's assume that the list gets full and an ongoing animation is replaced by another then the animation may never complete and the piece gets missing in the board.

[richard]

Hi argentum,

Yup, that was the bug I was referring to in my previous post. I haven't managed to track down the exact source of the problem yet (it seems to be related to very quick movements between next and previous moves where the piece is alternating quickly between taken and not-taken states, eventually the UI seems to lose track and thinks the piece is still taken when in fact it should be visible). This particular problem only occurs in problem viewing mode not while the tactic is live so I haven't made it an urgent priority yet. This is different to the problem I mentioned the other user reporting (and that I haven't been able to reproduce), which was related to pieces not appearing while the tactic was live.

Regards,
Richard.

[mgirkar]

Lost another 8 points because in 37533 the display lost the white rook at c4.  For what it is worth, the bug has hit me only in problems where I have spent a long time or perhaps I spent a long time because some piece was missing :-( 

[richard]

Hi mgirkar,

I'm sorry to hear you've lost more points, I'll look into this at my end, although problems like this that occur only rarely can be VERY hard to track down. Would it be possible for you to upgrade your browser to IE7 (or even better Firefox which is the browser I do most of my testing on and is currently probably a better/faster browser than IE7)?  I am planning to phase out support for IE6 once IE8 becomes available (which I believe is currently in beta testing).

Regards,
Richard.

[mgirkar]

Can't upgrade to IE 7 as my employer controls my environment, but the thought of trying out firefox had occurred to me.

[richard]

mgirkar: That is unfortunate, if they control your environment to that extent, they may not let you install Firefox.

[slacker00]

Sometimes when a problem begins, for me, there'll be a piece that won't pop up until maybe 10 seconds after the rest of the pieces are displayed.  It hasn't happened to me recently, but I thought I'd mention it.  It certainly is suprising, because I'm already thinking about the problem and all of the sudden an extra rook pops up. lmao