Very frustrating to lose a game due to constant downtimes on the part of the server; impossible to focus properly. And I guess this will even be counted against me as lack of fair play ("abanoned game"). The last popup was "Live Chess currently not available"... so I'm outta here for now.

What time and date did you see this? I was online in live chess till 2am uk time this morning, live chess hadn't gone offline for me while i was in there. Were you in after that time?

Yes, that could have been later. I still get about a dozen disconnections per game, even today. Very difficult to play. No Internet connection issues on my end, this being an optical FTTH line, enabling me to watch live TV streaming in HD quality, for instance. But even when I do nothing else online except the game of chess, I get these chess.com disconnects. I can only hope the stability will improve. In the game where I was given a loss for "abandoning" the game, the usual 2 minutes or so had not even passed. I suppose the server didn't even register my last move and the clocks on my screen must have been out-of-sync with those on the server. Also over the last 2 days, I have had to repeat several of my moves twice. That should never happen, right? I mean, if I'm supposedly "logged out", the game shouldn't really accept my move until I'm "logged in" again. What happens now is, I make a move and then, say 15 or 30 seconds later, the move suddenly vanishes from the board and I need to repeat it.

Can you confirm for me that having to repeat the move is in live chess?

Also, it is possible that if you make the move and are in the process of being disconnected, the move wasn't registered on the server so you would have to repeat.

Who is your isp?

Yes, that's in Live Chess. The ISP is Orange Fibernet Slovakia; should they be responsible for the red-bar icon next to my username? I mean, a game of chess shouldn't really be that hard to handle for any server or ISP. As to the moves repetition, it's one thing (and legitimate) to fail to register a move by the server, for whatever reason. But to show the move as *accepted*, and your opponent's clock running down for 30 or 45 seconds... that seems pretty unequivocal, doesn't it? Still, what happens is that after those 30/45 seconds, my move suddenly vanishes from the board and I can see *my* clock decreased by those 30/45 seconds, and need to repeat my last move.

Damn it all, I have just "lost" another game while leading by a rook due to "abandoning the game", even though the bar next to my username was green or orange. 2 minutes had NOT passed this time either. I'm gone for now and will need to look for a different site until this is resolved. :(

Live Chess unplayable again today. Many disconnections per game, even when the bar next to my name is green. And in the last game, just as I'm about to take my opponent's queen and win the game, the server interrupts the game, fails to wait for even 2 minutes, and hands ME a loss and minus 10 points. Thanks a lot, I'm outta here.

With the green bar, it shouldn't be on my end. And anyway, the 2 minutes had not passed. These things really distort a player's stats. :-(

Sorry for the delay in replying. Are you able to do a tracert and ping for me?

Traceroute is a command which can show you the path a packet of information takes from your computer to one you specify. It will list all the routers it passes through until it reaches its destination, or fails to and is discarded. In addition to this, it will tell you how long each 'hop' from router to router takes.

In Windows, select Start > Programs > Accessories > Command Prompt.

Enter the word tracert, followed by a space, then enter

chess.com

So it should look like this

tracert chess.com

then press enter on your keyboard.

Then

Enter the word ping followed by a space, then enter

live.chess.com

So it should look like this

ping live.chess.com

then press enter on your keyboard. Once its done its thing, click in the top left corner then on Edit and Select all.

click top left corner again, Edit then on copy. You can then paste it into an email to me please.

kohai@chess.com


This is important as other members may be experiencing the same issue.
--------------

on a mac

For the Apple people in the crowd, you can follow these steps:

    Double-click the Hard Drive icon > Applications folder > Utilities folder > Network Utility program.
    Select the trace route tab and enter the domain name
    Press the “enter” key and wait.

I don't know what's going on with my games, but it has become impossible for me to play lightning chess - I frequently wait 10 seconds for my opponent to move, then when he does, his tide springs back up 10 seconds and mine decreases 10 seconds, even when I move immediately. This has been happening for the last couple of days, especially in the evening (?) sometimes accompanied by a lost connection message, sometimes not. In any case, I can't concentrate on the games anymore, and the experience is being ruined. is it my computer, flash player, java, server, chess.com or what??

Which browser and version are you using ?  ( i need to know so i can test it my end)

What type of connection do you have to the internet? adsl ? wifi ?

Are you running any other applications when trying to log into live chess? Like media players, sending/receiving emails? current downloads?

Is it a public computer / shared network / private?

How old is your computer?

Is it Windows or Mac?

If you can give me as much detail as possible please I'd appreciate it as I will try to replicate whats happening.

---

Wow, thanx for the rapid response. I have a slowish direct private ADSL wi-fi connection, firefox and windows 7 32 bit. The lag bar by my name when playing varies from poor to high, no idea why. Cheers, Richard

oh, forgot a bit, i am usually permanently logged in, not running anything special and have an i7 processor.

Ok a few things to try.

Try Chrome instead of Firefox at the moment as Firefox is having issues which Mozilla are currently working on fixing.

Wifi may not be a good idea for live chess even though its fine for the rest of the site.

Being permenently logged in, perhaps try closing your browser, clearing the cookies and history on it, rebooting your computer .. or leave the computer off a while then re-try.

OK thanks, I'll try all that.

So tried all that, under a different username, with google chrome, just lost a 3 min game with 2 interrupted connection messages, lost 30 seconds each time and a few blocks of 20 seconds along the way with no messages or anything. i probably had about 40 seconds playing time. Even when I first tried this page I got te following message - 

This webpage is not available

Can you try this for me please http://www.chess.com/clear_cookies.html

then refresh the browser

Thanks for the reply, Kohai. The situation is back to normal now. I'll make sure to do a trace-route next time the issues reappear. I should mention, though, I only visit Chess.com on the iPad, and have played all of my 1300+ Live Chess games over the last 1+ year on the iPad (in Atomic Web Browser). I also stress that all other sites were working normally while only Live Chess was behaving erratically a few days ago, so I don't think the issue was on my end. Anyway, it's OK now. (And I hope it will also be for our Portuguese friend, although his setup is completely different from mine.)

Thanks for your help and advice Kohai, things seem to be normal again and I've recovered some points...however, how does the time animation work on the site anyway? Is it through software on my computer, or from your server? if from your server, how can times jump apparently at random?