Problem with Arena

I could open large PGN files ln Arena, but lately it opens only the first game on the list. Can anyone help? 

That's an odd problem to have.

Is this a PGN file that used to work and now doesn't work, or is it a PGN file that you've never used before? Have you recently added games to the file? Exactly how large is the file? Did Arena give you any error messages?

Maybe Arena doesn't like the formatting of the games in the PGN file? If you could paste one of the PGN file's non-functioning games here (copy-and-paste from the PGN file using Notepad), I'll load it into my Arena and see if it works.

This particular file doesn't work. It is downloaded from the PGN Mentor site, and other files downloaded from the same site also don't open in Arena, although they open in ChessBase. Older files, downloaded from  other sites, continue to open in Arena.

I suppose you are right: there are some formats which Arena doesn't open.

Thanks for your answer.      J.Gottlieb

Well, I downloaded one file at random from PGN Mentor, and it worked. Of course, the file was in zip format, and I had to unzip it first. Could the unzipping be the problem?

If that's not the problem, you could post the link to one of the problem files, and I'll see if it works for me.

Ex: Bronstein.pgn or Morozevich.pgn

To unzip I use PeaZip and never had any problems.

Hmm, both files worked great, both in Arena 3.0 and 3.5.

MD5 hash of Bronstein.zip = AC6ECD079544C9AC3D05B682767EA513

MD5 hash of Bronstein.pgn = F932704EA3547B7103B8E74B56344CA9

MD5 hash of Morozevich.zip = 6E49BB023D5672BD4C436B1977FEE718

MD5 hash of Morozevich.pgn = F9A2CEA68293A8A454BB4DEB825B84FF

I used both 7-Zip and Peazip, and both worked.

Thanks, but these particular files I cannot open.I am probably mistaken with some setting in Arena.

Well, what doesn't make any sense is the fact that some PGN files work in Arena, and some PGN files don't work in Arena. If it were just a wrong setting, I'd think all of the PGN files would act the same way. I honestly can't imagine what setting could be causing this effect.

That's why I posted the MD5 checksums (hashes) of the two files you mentioned. The idea was to check the file hashes both before and after unzipping, so we know that you're working with good files. PeaZip can make MD5 hashes of files, if you don't have other software to do that. Just open the PeaZip GUI, navigate to the PGN file and highlight it, then right-click on the PGN file to bring up the context-sensitive menu. Then select "File tools --> Checksum/hash file(s)". Alternatively, you can download a copy of MD5Checker here: http://getmd5checker.com/

I hate to say it, but if I had your problem, once I verified that the PGN file hashes matched the posted values, I might be tempted to just back up all of the important work I had in Arena, then uninstall/reinstall Arena.

i had this same problem with the same programs a second ago. basically, the pgn file i had coming from pgn mentor had only the title of the file for the white pieces in the pgn file. for the black side of the title it had the the "?" variable. I went back to pgn mentor and changed the title of the black pieces from "?" to "rybka analysis" and when I opened the file in arena, all positions were loaded. 

this was a huge problem for me becuase i was trying to create opening books in arena from files coming from rybka and i needed the pgn mentor functionality of stemming 1 pgn game with variations in many games within on pgn so that the abk books could be created. anyhow hope that helps