My engine could not start a new game with whites.

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Luis Babboni
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Location: Argentina

My engine could not start a new game with whites.

Post by Luis Babboni »

Hi, me again bothering you.

I´m trying to make dialogue between Arena´s UCI and my future new engine.
I could play one game with no problem, with human (w) vs myengine(b) sometimes I could make more than one game, but with myengine (w) and human (b), I never could play more than one game. :(
In fact I´m not sure how to stop a game and start a new one in Arena, what I do is Adjudicate; decline or stop calculating followed by New.
Seeing what Arena shows in the debug windows, the problem for me is that there is no indication to my engine that a new game starts.
If I just wait.... nothing happens.
If I try to force my engine to start making Move now! This is what I see in the debug windows.

2015-04-27 16:17:38,293 -->:stop
2015-04-27 16:17:42,623*1*
2015-04-27 16:17:42,623*1*
2015-04-27 16:17:42,623*1*Engine already calculating!
2015-04-27 16:17:42,633*1*
2015-04-27 16:17:42,633*1*

There is nothing after the "stop" that indicates to my engine that need to start a new game.
:shock:

Wich is my mistake? :oops:

Thanks!
Sven
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Re: My engine could not start a new game with whites.

Post by Sven »

At the time where the GUI sends commands to your engine, like the command to start a new game or to move now, is your engine idle or searching at that moment? If it is searching, does it check for input periodically (or with a separate input thread) during search?
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Luis Babboni
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Re: My engine could not start a new game with whites.

Post by Luis Babboni »

As far as I understood.... my engine is waiting for a GUI output, the problem is that the GUI does not make any output after that "stop" as you could see in the debug windows dialogue I pasted.
In fact if I send commands manually using the debug windows, my engine works fine.
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hgm
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Re: My engine could not start a new game with whites.

Post by hgm »

Looks like your engine did not reply with a 'bestmove' after stop. Arena no doubt will be waiting for that before attempting to start a new game.
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Luis Babboni
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Re: My engine could not start a new game with whites.

Post by Luis Babboni »

I bet I do not understand correctly how to finish a game and start a new one with Arena.
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Luis Babboni
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Location: Argentina

Re: My engine could not start a new game with whites.

Post by Luis Babboni »

hgm wrote:Looks like your engine did not reply with a 'bestmove' after stop. Arena no doubt will be waiting for that before attempting to start a new game.
Ap.... I did not know that.... the stop must be answered with a "bestmove"?

Mmmm.... you say, if that stop coming from a "move now"?
But how do my engine knows a new game started?

There was no "startpos"
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Luis Babboni
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Re: My engine could not start a new game with whites.

Post by Luis Babboni »

If I just use Decline to finish a game, it seems its works. :?
Not yet using adjudicate.

Enough for the moment.... thanks
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hgm
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Re: My engine could not start a new game with whites.

Post by hgm »

Luis Babboni wrote:Ap.... I did not know that.... the stop must be answered with a "bestmove"?
Any search (started by a 'go' command) should end with a 'bestmove'. Whether it ended because it timed out, or because it received 'stop'. The 'bestmove' is not so much a reply to 'stop' as well a (mandatory) reply to 'go'.
Mmmm.... you say, if that stop coming from a "move now"?
But how do my engine knows a new game started?
I am not saying anything. But from the log you can see Arena did send stop. So apparently it thinks the engine is searching. If it is, (and you don't show enough of the log to see if this is true), the engine should have answered with 'bestmove'. And I don't see that in the log, so probably it did not do that. If it was not searching, it would be an Arena bug that it sends 'stop'.
There was no "startpos"
You mean after the 'stop'? Of course there is no 'startos'. The GUI will not start a new game whie the search of the previous one is still in progress.