What you are describing sounds like a disconnect issue. Your client got disconnected and for whatever reason didn't correctly assess that so the timer kept counting down. Eventually, the client reconnected and saw the correct times so it updated the clocks appropriately.
From your opponent's perspective, he made a move and you just sat there thinking for a very long time, though he may have seen that you were disconnected.
What you are describing sounds like a disconnect issue. Your client got disconnected and for whatever reason didn't correctly assess that so the timer kept counting down. Eventually, the client reconnected and saw the correct times so it updated the clocks appropriately.
From your opponent's perspective, he made a move and you just sat there thinking for a very long time, though he may have seen that you were disconnected.
But it happened instantly. I didn't wait and was able to move instantly after he made his move, yet the timers still switched.
I can understand that if I did have a disconnect issue, my time when I reconnect will be less, but how did his time go from 7 seconds to 1:30 when there were no time bonuses (which was exactly what my time was at)?
The time used is logged in v3, so it can be checked easily. Which game was it? Might help diagnose what you saw, though if something bugged out staff will have to look at it.
Is it possible that some dishonest players know a trick or something? I have lost dozens of bullet and blitz games because of "timer bugs". I had 10 seconds , for instance , the opponent had 0 and suddenly I lose on time before I realise it. It's frustrating , some guys seem to know the way!!! Of course , this makes them great hackers , not great chess players...
Is it possible that some dishonest players know a trick or something? I have lost dozens of bullet and blitz games because of "timer bugs". I had 10 seconds , for instance , the opponent had 0 and suddenly I lose on time before I realise it. It's frustrating , some guys seem to know the way!!! Of course , this makes them great hackers , not great chess players...
I will rarely say never but it is probably unlikely. I'm not a site programmer but the two clients should never directly talk to each other. So, your opponent has no way to determine your IP or impact the connection to your client.
The server will relay all traffic you need to you and only valid data will pass. As long as the chat inputs are sanitized and things like disconnect messages don't cause the client to glitch then any disconnects or "timer bugs" are likely processes on your end or with the connection between your client and the live server.
There is also the possibility that there are some bugs in the Live client that can cause time issues on their own but I'm guessing that affects a maximum of 20% of the games that have similar issues.
I don't know if anybody else has encountered this, but I found a bug with the timer in live Chess. I was playing a guy and was winning on time. He had about 7 seconds left and he made a move. Suddenly, our timers just switched. I was the one with a few seconds left now even though I was supposed to have 1:30 minutes, but he had 1:30 minutes (which was supposed to be my time). I ended up losing on time because of that. I'm playing on the Android mobile app if that makes a difference.