Bugs in Arena 3.5.1

[EN]

I have used Arena 3.5.1 a lot and have never had those issues. The only big issue I ever see is it crashes frequently and restarts during a tournament, but it restarts right where it left off.

I think what Erin Dame suggested might fix it.

I've seen that exact option but never bothered to modify it to my needs. Usually, after few games with 2 engines, I may opt to try another different pair of engines. All for entertainment. So I never encountered what you're experiencing. But in my case, when I run Deep Rybka 3 x64 in Arena 1.1, DR3 starts to play! No problems whatsoever. This is the message from Arena 3.5.1 when attempting to play IvanHoe with Deep Rybka 3:

Pairing 1/1: Deep Rybka 3 x64 - IvanHoe999970_PrefetchSS_x64_FT
Round 1 of 10: Deep Rybka 3 x64 - IvanHoe999970_PrefetchSS_x64_FT
Game end: 0-1{0-1 Arena Adjudication. Illegal move!}
Last game won by IvanHoe999970_PrefetchSS_x64_FT with Black in 0 moves
Deep Rybka 3 x64 - IvanHoe999970_PrefetchSS_x64_FT:
1 B 2 1.0:0.0 9:28:05PM 0.00 0 0:0 0-1-0
+++++++File not found+++++++
+++++++File not found+++++++
+++++++File not found+++++++


Over and over...ad infinitum.

[Modern Times]

The worst bug I see frequently is that Arena continues a game after an engine has lost on time

[mike angel]

Surely it could happen - for unknown reasons - that an engine did not run under Arena 3.51 but with Cutechess-Gui 1.00. But also vice versa.

In that case I take the other Gui.

Yes I know in Cutechess-Gui there is actually no possibility for restart a tournament - thats a big problem. But I hope that will be solved soon.

[CMCanavessi]

Yes I know in Cutechess-Gui there is actually no possibility for restart a tournament - thats a big problem. But I hope that will be solved soon.

It's implemented on the TCEC fork of Cutechess, which is also public and on Github.

[mike angel]

have you been successfull in compiling it?

[Milos]

Yes I know in Cutechess-Gui there is actually no possibility for restart a tournament - thats a big problem. But I hope that will be solved soon.

It's implemented on the TCEC fork of Cutechess, which is also public and on Github.

I haven't yet been able to find an executable with that feature.

Well you should learn to perform trivial tasks such as compiling yourself, so that you don't have to go around and look and ask for executables.
Here is the source:
https://github.com/gvreuls/cutechess

[Milos]

Yes I know in Cutechess-Gui there is actually no possibility for restart a tournament - thats a big problem. But I hope that will be solved soon.

It's implemented on the TCEC fork of Cutechess, which is also public and on Github.

I haven't yet been able to find an executable with that feature.

Well you should learn to perform trivial tasks such as compiling yourself, so that you don't have to go around and look and ask for executables.
Here is the source:
https://github.com/gvreuls/cutechess

Thanks Milos. I did not know it was trivial. Then the fact that some programmers do not provide executables to their engines must be due to some other reason.

The reason is simple, open source is predominantly on Linux. Since there are so many distributions and different kernels it is quite a cumbersome task to provide binaries that would work on all.
Therefore, most of programmers assume ppl know how to compile.
In your case all you need is mingw compiler, QT libraries and qmake (which comes with QT).

[JohnW]

I have used Arena 3.5.1 a lot and have never had those issues. The only big issue I ever see is it crashes frequently and restarts during a tournament, but it restarts right where it left off.

Are you sure it's crashing? The default setting is to restart Arena after every 20 games. You can change this on the Start/Quit tab of the Engine Tournament dialog.

Thanks, I never noticed that. I wonder why anyone would want that option..

[Ras]

The reason is simple, open source is predominantly on Linux. Since there are so many distributions and different kernels it is quite a cumbersome task to provide binaries that would work on all.

Application distribution under Linux is completely broken. Torvalds' own words on that one were, as usually, less friendly.

But that isn't a reason to avoid executables for platforms where that actually works. The reason for that one is that the developers simply don't care.

[EN]

These are bugs I've observed within few days of using Arena 3.5.1. If I find more, I'll share. Or if anyone else knows of any bugs, please don't hesitate to share.

1. Faulty memory in remembering and displaying installed engines. For example, just yesterday (March 11), I installed 3 to 4 engines about 3 times [repeatedly] before it finally registered and displayed in the Arena engine lists. Coming to think of it, it happened last week when I started using Arena, but I attributed it to me erroneously assuming I had already installed it and proceeded to installed the engine. That is, until yesterday when I paid attention.

2. Rybka 3 won't play in Arena 3.5.1. I don't know if any one else encountered this with Rybka 3 x64 in Arena 3.5.1. To prove/disprove my suspicion, I ran Rybka 3 x64 in Arena 1.1, and sure enough, Rybka 3 x64 played.

3. Black-side seems to take a long time to respond or make its first move - even though a common book has been assigned to both engines. Not so Arena 1.1. I would tests other preceding versions to 3.5.1 [ 1.99 beta5, 2.0, 2.0.1, 2.5 etc (as well as #2 bug listed above)] but don't have time at the moment.

Disregard bug #2. I figured out what prevented Deep Rybka 3 from playing in Arena 3.5.1. It turns out that I neglected to (or did NOT) classify Deep Rybka 3 as "UCI" AFTER installation, but rather, left it as "Autodetect". Classifying Deep Rybka 3 as "UCI" fixed it, and it plays flawlessly in Arena 3.5.1. In retrospect, Arena 1.1 explains everything; as it auto-detects and classifies an engine for you. Hence why Deep Rybka 3 played in Arena 1.1 but not in Arena 3.5.1 without a user's classification.

Just for other Arena-newbie like me; this is achieved in Arena 3.5.1 from its menu:

Engines\Manage\Select\ (here, you highlight engine of interest), click or select on "Details" and classify engine (as WB, or UCI, or "Autodetect") accordingly.