Client side not recognizing a move, then player getting timed out as a result -- happens a lot in th

I have reviewed the changes from ~two weeks ago a few times already, but there's nothing that would be obviously connected to the problem at hand.

btw to draw arrows, right-click and drag. this is just to find out if the client is stil behaving as it should. If not, this is indeed an indication for a client side bug.

as i've stated a few times, there are two possibilities. Either the move is lost somewhere on  the way from the server to the client, or the client doesn't process it. I suspect the former.

Of course I also check the logs for anything suspicious that might relate to this problem, but haven't found anything.

What I occaisionally had happen too is that when i click a game, it get's stuck (the spinner in the board center keeps spinning and nothing happens), and I suspect this is the exact same problem. The game is sent but never reaches the client.

So i suspect it's a socket or network related issue, which are layers that are handled by third party libraries. 

But the clearest indicator of a network socket related issue is that this only happens from time to time. A client side bug would most likely be the same for every move. It's possible that there is a certain constellation of circumstances that causes this behavior, but I have yet to recognize any pattern.

Taking into consideration other observations, like games occaisionally hanging (they get lost somehow), I suspect we are dealing with unreliable network sockets.

Perhaps an increased amount of traffic could contribute to it getting worse, and the only thing in the last release that added network traffic is the joining leaving of custom games. Hence the attempt to turn them off and see if it makes a difference. We tried that, and I could't make out any difference. Moreover, (and I have written all of this above already at least once) i noticed a huge difference from one day to another, while absouletly nothing changed! (eg we did not release new software, and nothing on the server was changed).

All this makes me think it's caused by something outside the 4pc app.

The server admin told us that the current hosting is "unstable". Socket.io (the third party library we use for connections) does also not have a very good reputation.

So I am looking to change both of these. A new server/hosting setup is in the works, and I am also looking into alternatives for socket.io.

I'd never used the arrows and don't even know what they are for? Are they used in FFA? (that is all I play).

Here is a suggestion to help you get more diagnostic info about the issue. How about adding a button/link to the interface, that activates when it is a player's turn -- and then deactivates after the player has moved (and the move has been registered by the server AND the client) -- then, if the player moves but it doesn't register in the client -- the player can click the button/link and that will run code that does two things:

1. sends to your diagnostic server some log information about the state of the game and network info, load issue, etc

2. refreshes the player's client (without forcing them to do an entire reload which can take 5-10 seconds).

Arrows work everywhere: in Teams, in FFA, on Analysis Board. In FFA you draw them for yourself only. It helps to keep in mind important moves you plan to do and important squares you want to protect or attack. Try it.

Bug still happening

We are going to update 4PC next week.

Thanks Team

It does not mean the bug will be definitely fixed. Don't want to give you a false hope.

fyi, the new servers (test and main) are in the works. we have successfully set up a new test server (it will be available under chess.com/4pc-beta soon).

As suggested by riv3r, I have added a realod button (will be released soon). this is only for the time being, to provide a quick way to re-join a game without reloading the window. the link only shows when it's your turn.

Awesome _-__-__-___-, thanks for adding the reload button. 

_-__-__-___- that seems like a decent guess. I've seen this happen for longer than 2 weeks btw, so I would not rely on that changeset being the problem. Thanks for looking into it!

the reload game button is now available

I played a bunch yesterday, connection was terrible. I ran into the problem at hand once too, so i clicked the new reload game button. It felt like nothing happend. The game did however reload after about 5 seconds. I am now convinced that it is indeed a terrible lag that causes these problems. I also noticed that when I reload the page, the time from when the page/board was loaded until the (socket.io) requests are answered (eg the number of games/players online/games list show up) was often a few seconds. Sometimes I did not even get any responses and the page remained "hollow" (eg no list, 0 games/players etc), and I had to reload the page again.

The focus is now on getting the new server set up, and replacing socket.io.

Every time I need to reload, the first time I do it the game only shows the starting setup, I have to refresh a 2nd time to get the game back (why I always lose about 20 secs+)

Do you reload using the new button [It's your turn]?

I've used the reload button a couple of times now. I'll say that it is often not obvious that clicking it did anything... until 5-10 seconds elapses... it would be nice if the JS code offered some immediate indication that clicking the button was recognized by the client (maybe a sound)... even if it takes 5-10 seconds for the click to produce the desired result of starting a refresh from the server.

This looks to finally be resolved thanks team  No longer having issues and my rating has jumped over 100 already

erm.. we have done nothing.

maybe the server and network gods continue to be with you - and us

With the help of an expert, we were able to track what we think has been causing disconnects to the daily/weekly leaderboard calc that runs every 10 minutes. It's about the last thing I would have suspected. I've disabled the daily/weekly leaderboard now and we updated the server.

I hope very much this solves the problem, eg overall connections stability goes back to how it was before the mid december custom games release (which also introduced these new leaderboards)

Please let me know if things have improved.

Thanks for the update. I experienced the bug a couple of times yesterday (more than 10 hours ago) -- I'll see how it plays today, now that you've made this change.

Hi all, I wanted to know why this bug is not fixed yet. It seems that it's been going on for years now.

When the issue arises, I also make sure that in a separate command window I have a continuous ping -t www.chess.com running with no packets lost.

For instance, just happened to me in this game: https://www.chess.com/variants/4-player-chess/game/55409174/114/3

It's really annoying.

Thanks!