Explore Function not working

After playing a game, I use the review function and also click " Explore" which, until yesterday, generated games played by masters under the heading "Notable games from this position". Now, it gives the number of games for each continuation, but not the games themselves as it perpetually shows the " loading" or "buffering" symbol. The actual games don't appear no matter how long I wait. Everything was working fine until yesterday.

I emailed support only to find, to my dismay, that they have abandoned support in favour of a bot and directions to FAQ. which don't work. This is woefully short of acceptable customer service.

They haven't abandoned customer service. They just use the bots to more quickly answer the repeated questions that members ask.

You can't email customer service any more. You have to use the Support link and tell the bot what you are looking for. If they can't answer the question, you are able to contact human support.

I have always liked the Explore function but I haven't used it much recently.

If there is a bug in it, it would be good to file a bug report so that it can be fixed. I will give it a try and see what I can figure out.

I guess the above is what you were talking about. I couldn't get it to bring up any relevant games either.

I made a bug report.

I do also see that if you go to the same position using the link to the Explorer, it is able to come up with the relevant master games.

https://www.chess.com/explorer

https://www.chess.com/games/search?fen=r1bqkb1r%2F1p3ppp%2Fp1n1p3%2F2ppP3%2F5P2%2F2N2N2%2FPPPP2PP%2FR1BQK2R+w+KQkq

Thanks justbefair for taking the time and trouble to consider and post. Much appreciated.

A few points/ questions in response-

- How did you make a bug report? Is it your status as moderator that equips you to do this?

- When you say this "You have to use the Support link and tell the bot what you are looking for. If they can't answer the question, you are able to contact human support.". Well I did spend some time trying to use the bot and I wasn't getting anywhere. Can you really then go on to get human support and how do you do this?

- How will we know whether Chess.com have actioned this- just wait and see ( and maybe continue indefinitely suffering the erosion of quality of experience without the means of addressing this)?

- When you say " They haven't abandoned customer service." Well, my confidence is shaken, I've only just renewed and I'm very disappointed. I love the game and previously was very impressed. I hope they can respond and renew my faith. It would be nice if they would acknowledge and send me a message.

However, thanks again to you and keep up the good work.

To be fair, I should now say that the games in the explore function have now reappeared.

I'm still not impressed by the withdrawal of human support- replaced by bot which doesn't seem to fit the bill.

Maybe Chess.com could proactively contact members who highlight issues which they then resolve. Or have a well advertised place where members suggestions are commented on and actioned. This would encourage participation rather than leave members wondering whether their issue is going to be resolved. If they are complacent they will lose business.

When you click on the big question mark on the bottom of the page, it takes you to support and asks what you want to do. One of the options under "Contact Support" is to make a bug report.

I have made many bug reports over the years and I would say I get contacted by the developers about 1 in 10 times.

That doesn't bother me because I know that there are tens of millions of active users and I would guess that they get thousands of bug reports every week. Just reading them and sorting them is probably a full time job.

The new AI bot support screen is challenging but I have hacked my way through it multiple times. I understand why they would try to implement something like it. There are just so many users and most of the support requests fall into a limited number of tasks that require support help. Trying to direct people immediately to those answers seems like a good idea to me.