Bug in xboard 4.4.4; banned for ICC rated play!

[mhull]

Seriously, have you considered getting a used, older Macintosh with Mac OS/X installed? I've got a iMac PowerPC G3 that's eleven years old and runs OS/X 10.4.11 with the whole development toolchain and X Windows. Machines like this can be had for under US$25 here in the States. Using a machine with a different CPU family and a different Unix to assist with testing can save enough time to easily repay the purchase price.

Maybe you can give him an account on such a machine that he can "ssh -X" into.

[sje]

Maybe you can give him an account on such a machine that he can "ssh -X" into.

There are some difficulties with that related to having Mac OS/X 10.4 X Windows running as a remote server. It would be easier to just ship the machine.

[sje]

This time it happened with xboard 4.5.2a; again with an "undo" command arriving nearly immediately after the start of a game. Opponent won on time forfeit after a 15 minute wait.

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Message sent to ICC user Symbolic from ICC user JimmyS
Hi. Please check your Symbolic handle for malfunction. It flagged very early in a game on the ICC.

[hgm]

xboard.debug file?

[sje]

I didn't activate the xboard debug option. Symbolic's log of the Symbolic/xboard exchanges is essentially the same as the one in the first post of this thread. Basically, the undo bug in 4.4.4 is present in 4.5.2a.

So, to produce the xboard debug file:

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-debug -debugFile xboard.debug

Does the above do the job?

[hgm]

Just -debug would already do it, as xboard.debug is the default name for the debug log. The -debugFile option you would only need if you want to use another name. (Beware that the debug file will be overwritten if you start a new session with -debug on; it is a "w" file, not an "a" file.)

[sje]

I have restarted xboard/Symbolic on FICS with the -debug flag. I checked the xboard.debug file output and it appears to be generated properly. The file will be huge if it takes a few days for the bug to appear.

For the present, I will keep Symbolic away from ICC to avoid unnecessary irritation of opponents and the sysadmins.

[sje]

I have restarted xboard/Symbolic on FICS with the -debug flag. I checked the xboard.debug file output and it appears to be generated properly. The file will be huge if it takes a few days for the bug to appear.

Not as huge as I first thought. The xboard.debug file is growing at the rate of about 12 MB per day.

[sje]

After a full day, Symbolic has played 1,848 games on FICS, the xboard debug file has grown to 24 MB, and no bugs have occurred. Perhaps this is one of these cases where activating debug output suppresses a bug. This has happened a number of times in my programs from the old K&R C days.

[hgm]

Hmm, let's hope not.