Hint button gives bad advice?

I'm trying to teach myself using the computers, which offer hint buttons and move analysis, but anytime I don't know what to do in a situation and use the hint button to learn, it seems to give me a terrible suggestion. So far every time I've followed what it suggests it has immediately called it an inaccuracy or a mistake, and I lose a piece.

Do hints not do what I think they do? Why would you have a hint button that actively hurts the player? I feel like I'm not understanding something, but it's clear I just can't use the button anymore which makes it seem like any other ai chess is better for learning, as their hints are at least useful and can show me opportunities I miss.

The hints shouldn't offer bad moves unless it's a really low-level computer program. If you can post an example or screenshot, we could help more.

Well you can try analysis

It's been an issue for the last month or two.

It used to be the case that if I tried to "finish against computer" after running an analysis, I could click "hint" and learn what the best move is.  Now, the hint button suggests moves that range anywhere from average to outright blunders.

It's a shame, because the "hint" feature was really useful.

I used the "report a bug" link under the "help" icon, but didn't get a response and the problem persists.  I'd encourage others to share the issue with the IT staff to get it on their radar.

I've found this as well.  I would expect the "hint" button to give the best move possible but it often seems to suggest moves that are either so genius I can't understand them (sacrificing my queen for no apparent reason....?!) or more likely just wrong.

I've been trying to use them by deciding what my move would be, and then "hinting" to see what the "best" move is, but often after following the "hint" move I just lose pieces for no obvious advantage.

If/when you use the hint button don't just blindly accept the advice. Analyze what it's suggesting beyond the immediate move. If you can't figure out why it's suggesting the move don't take it.

Often it's not obvious why it's suggesting a move until a move or two later.  Sometimes I have followed it and then understood, other times it has just seemed to be a blunder.  It would help to know that the hint was always the "best" move, otherwise we could spend ages analyzing a terrible suggestion!

I find them useful to try and compare against what my move was and understand the difference, and sometimes I play forwards and backwards a few moves comparing the two options to see what unfolds differently but they do sometimes seems to be pretty random.

Same issue here. Quite often, I olay the suggested hint, and the analysis immediately says it is a blunder (and it actually is), so the hint feature is pretty useless...