Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

It seems to me that there is something that does not work. I cannot mve in my games here:https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/play.php?game=Chu+Shogi&log=dax00-cvgameroom-2022-20-382&userid=catugo and here: https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/play.php?game=Maces%2C+Shields%2C+and+Horse-apults&log=arx-catugo-2022-22-073&userid=catugo .

Also when I access my presets they reverse to the default regular chess.

I introduced a general problem last night regarding the parsing of $_POST values, and I have now fixed it.

@Fergus & @HG

These 3 presets work fine but the shuffling algorithm produces different initial setups for white and black.

https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/play.php?game=Grand+Apothecary+Chess+1&settings=Applet https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/play.php?game=Grand+Apothecary+Chess+2&settings=Applet https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/play.php?game=Grand+Apothecary+Chess+3&settings=Applet

It will be easier to look into this if you first fix the display of pieces on Black's turn. You need to set $flipped to the same value as $pieces, because Alfaerie:Many includes some flipped pieces, but your game does not.

These 3 presets work fine but the shuffling algorithm produces different initial setups for white and black.

I'm testing with this clone:

https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/play.php?game=Grand+Apothecary+Chess+1&settings=Applet-Test

I see that Black and White have different opening positions. Is that what you mean?

If you want them to be the same, then you need to create a random opening position for only one side and copy it to the other side. This might be an issue for H. G. to deal with, as the buggy code might be his.

The array shufflespecs needs an extra 0 at the end (in addition to the triples describing the individual shuffle steps) to symmetrize the position, and the preset's Pre-Game code doesn't seem to have that. If this is code generated through the Play-Test Applet it could be that it got confused about the symmetry of the diagram. When symmetry=none it would shuffle white and black independently.

@Fergus: please also have a look at the problem reported here. I really think there must be something wrong other than the GAME-code, because when I put a printr $spaces; at the end of the Pre-Game section it prints the array twice. I don't think that should ever be possible, no matter how buggy the GAME code might be, if the underlying software functions properly.

@Fergus: please also have a look at the problem reported here.

Do you mean the problem reported by Daniel Zacharias, which I just gave the solution to? Or were you describing an independent problem? If so, I would need a link.

There was another problem with the same game. I know it's not related to the piece image thing because I just tried it again and it still doesn't work.

What was that problem, specifically? What doesn't work?

There was this error.

ILLEGAL: P g4-g6 on turn 1:

There was no P on g4. The piece on g4 is a Z.

Go back with your browser's BACK button, reload the page, and try again.

For diagnostic purposes, here is the full movelist:

1. P g4-g6 
1... p g9-g7 
2. Z i1-g4 
2... a e11-i7 
3. P f4-f5 
3... a i7-d2; q-dest 
4. A h2-e5 
4... q d2-i7 
5. P c4-c6 
5... q i7-i3 // - check! -
6. E j3-i3

When I entered that sequence of moves all at once, I got the same error. Then I entered each move separately and still got the same error. So, I took back the last move and found another legal move, which worked out. A little later, I tested other moves by the E and e pieces, and when I moved the other E piece, though not an e piece, I got the same error. Taking back that move and trying E again later, I got the error "g4 is empty". There seems to be something wrong with the E piece, but I am too unfamiliar with the workings of this generated code to debug it.

I tried to debug it some time ago, and the error message was provoked by the first halfmove of the game being applied to the position resembling the one that occurs after all moves have already been applied once. So the question is: why would Game Courier try to apply the set of moves twice? And, as I said, it also appears to execute the Pre-Game code twice. (But not fully, otherwise the first loading of the game would be fully erased, and undetectable.) I had the impression it was due to the previous move being a check, but this could be a coincidence.

In a short game in which I was moving Pawns out of the way to move the E piece, I tried each E piece, and it gave the error "g4 is empty" each time. Since g4 was in fact empty, I did a quicker game in which I just moved Pawns near the E and e piece before moving the E piece. This gave the error:

ILLEGAL: P i4-i5 on turn 1:

There was no P on i4. The piece on i4 is a E.

Go back with your browser's BACK button, reload the page, and try again.

For diagnostic purposes, here is the full movelist:

1. P i4-i5 
1... p i9-i8 
2. E j3-i4

I then took back the last move, cleared a space for the other E piece to move, moved an e piece, then moved the other E piece. This time, I got the error "i4 is empty".

So, it's looking like there is something wrong with the E piece.

You are right, moving E appears to trigger the problem. Which is strange, because all pieces use the same code for generating their moves; it is just that the data stored for describing E and e is in a different section of the array with move descriptions. Functions E and e are supposed to tell where exactly. Perhaps something disastrous happens in GAME code when using functions called E or e?

The shorter game causes the same problem: I put print statements at the start of the Pre-Game and Post-Move sections to see when they are called, and a printr $space; at the end of the Pre-Game section. This shows the same behavior also for the short game: Game Courier attempts to play the game twice for deducing the current position, but when it plays it the second time the Pre-Game section doesn't seem to be executed properly, because it sticks with the position resulting from applying the moves the first time instead of producing the initial position. So that the the fist halfmove cannot be applied to it the second time, and aborts the loading with an error message (see below).

I think the key to this is still understanding why Game Courier goes through the movelist twice. I see no need for it to do that.

Please report any bugs or errors to H.G. Muller

pregame

Array
(
    [a12] => d
    [b12] => l
    [c12] => u
    [d12] => z
    [e12] => o
    [f12] => q
    [g12] => k
    [h12] => o
    [i12] => z
    [j12] => u
    [k12] => l
    [l12] => d
    [a11] => r
    [b11] => m
    [c11] => n
    [d11] => b
    [e11] => a
    [f11] => y
    [g11] => y
    [h11] => a
    [i11] => b
    [j11] => n
    [k11] => m
    [l11] => r
    [a10] => x
    [b10] => i
    [c10] => e
    [d10] => g
    [e10] => s
    [f10] => c
    [g10] => c
    [h10] => s
    [i10] => g
    [j10] => e
    [k10] => i
    [l10] => x
    [a9] => p
    [b9] => p
    [c9] => p
    [d9] => p
    [e9] => p
    [f9] => p
    [g9] => p
    [h9] => p
    [i9] => p
    [j9] => p
    [k9] => p
    [l9] => p
    [a8] => @
    [b8] => @
    [c8] => @
    [d8] => @
    [e8] => @
    [f8] => @
    [g8] => @
    [h8] => @
    [i8] => @
    [j8] => @
    [k8] => @
    [l8] => @
    [a7] => @
    [b7] => @
    [c7] => @
    [d7] => @
    [e7] => @
    [f7] => @
    [g7] => @
    [h7] => @
    [i7] => @
    [j7] => @
    [k7] => @
    [l7] => @
    [a6] => @
    [b6] => @
    [c6] => @
    [d6] => @
    [e6] => @
    [f6] => @
    [g6] => @
    [h6] => @
    [i6] => @
    [j6] => @
    [k6] => @
    [l6] => @
    [a5] => @
    [b5] => @
    [c5] => @
    [d5] => @
    [e5] => @
    [f5] => @
    [g5] => @
    [h5] => @
    [i5] => @
    [j5] => @
    [k5] => @
    [l5] => @
    [a4] => P
    [b4] => P
    [c4] => P
    [d4] => P
    [e4] => P
    [f4] => P
    [g4] => P
    [h4] => P
    [i4] => P
    [j4] => P
    [k4] => P
    [l4] => P
    [a3] => X
    [b3] => I
    [c3] => E
    [d3] => G
    [e3] => S
    [f3] => C
    [g3] => C
    [h3] => S
    [i3] => G
    [j3] => E
    [k3] => I
    [l3] => X
    [a2] => R
    [b2] => M
    [c2] => N
    [d2] => B
    [e2] => A
    [f2] => Y
    [g2] => Y
    [h2] => A
    [i2] => B
    [j2] => N
    [k2] => M
    [l2] => R
    [a1] => D
    [b1] => L
    [c1] => U
    [d1] => Z
    [e1] => O
    [f1] => Q
    [g1] => K
    [h1] => O
    [i1] => Z
    [j1] => U
    [k1] => L
    [l1] => D
)

postmove1

postmove2

postmove1

pregame

Array
(
    [a12] => d
    [b12] => l
    [c12] => u
    [d12] => z
    [e12] => o
    [f12] => q
    [g12] => k
    [h12] => o
    [i12] => z
    [j12] => u
    [k12] => l
    [l12] => d
    [a11] => r
    [b11] => m
    [c11] => n
    [d11] => b
    [e11] => a
    [f11] => y
    [g11] => y
    [h11] => a
    [i11] => b
    [j11] => n
    [k11] => m
    [l11] => r
    [a10] => x
    [b10] => i
    [c10] => e
    [d10] => g
    [e10] => s
    [f10] => c
    [g10] => c
    [h10] => s
    [i10] => g
    [j10] => e
    [k10] => i
    [l10] => x
    [a9] => p
    [b9] => p
    [c9] => p
    [d9] => @
    [e9] => p
    [f9] => p
    [g9] => p
    [h9] => p
    [i9] => p
    [j9] => p
    [k9] => p
    [l9] => p
    [a8] => @
    [b8] => @
    [c8] => @
    [d8] => p
    [e8] => @
    [f8] => @
    [g8] => @
    [h8] => @
    [i8] => @
    [j8] => @
    [k8] => @
    [l8] => @
    [a7] => @
    [b7] => @
    [c7] => @
    [d7] => @
    [e7] => @
    [f7] => @
    [g7] => @
    [h7] => @
    [i7] => @
    [j7] => @
    [k7] => @
    [l7] => @
    [a6] => @
    [b6] => @
    [c6] => @
    [d6] => @
    [e6] => @
    [f6] => @
    [g6] => @
    [h6] => @
    [i6] => @
    [j6] => @
    [k6] => @
    [l6] => @
    [a5] => @
    [b5] => @
    [c5] => @
    [d5] => @
    [e5] => @
    [f5] => @
    [g5] => @
    [h5] => @
    [i5] => P
    [j5] => @
    [k5] => @
    [l5] => @
    [a4] => P
    [b4] => P
    [c4] => P
    [d4] => P
    [e4] => P
    [f4] => P
    [g4] => P
    [h4] => P
    [i4] => E
    [j4] => P
    [k4] => P
    [l4] => P
    [a3] => X
    [b3] => I
    [c3] => E
    [d3] => G
    [e3] => S
    [f3] => C
    [g3] => C
    [h3] => S
    [i3] => G
    [j3] => E
    [k3] => I
    [l3] => X
    [a2] => R
    [b2] => M
    [c2] => N
    [d2] => B
    [e2] => A
    [f2] => Y
    [g2] => Y
    [h2] => A
    [i2] => B
    [j2] => N
    [k2] => M
    [l2] => R
    [a1] => D
    [b1] => L
    [c1] => U
    [d1] => Z
    [e1] => O
    [f1] => Q
    [g1] => K
    [h1] => O
    [i1] => Z
    [j1] => U
    [k1] => L
    [l1] => D
)

postmove1

ILLEGAL: P i4-i5 on turn 1:

There was no P on i4. The piece on i4 is a E.

Go back with your browser's BACK button, reload the page, and try again.

For diagnostic purposes, here is the full movelist:

1. P i4-i5 
1... p d9-d8 
2. E j3-i4

It sounds like something in your code is producing an unwanted goto to the beginning of the program when the E piece is moved.

This bit of code in the pregame section might be the problem:

        case I E 
          set choice intersection #choice (O #piece);
          break;

Notice that there is no colon after the E in the case statement.

It looks like that missing colon was the problem. That was my fault

You need to set $flipped to the same value as $pieces, because Alfaerie:Many includes some flipped pieces, but your game does not.

@HG

I have done what you have said and now things work properly. Thank you!

It sounds like something in your code is producing an unwanted goto to the beginning of the program when the E piece is moved.

That is totally unexpected behavior, and makes it virtually impossile to figure out what the error is. Isn't it possible to do some syntax checking on the GAME code (e.g. when it gest submitted) to prevent such erratic behavior?

@Daniel: You redefined the Promote routine just to implement Shogi-style promotion? Perhaps the betza.txt include should already provide a standard way to do that. E.g. triggered by the presence of an associative array #shogiprom, which would provide the promoted type when indexed with the basic type, and then set #choice to an array containing that promoted type and the piece itself. This could still be intersected with the possible choices for each rank (e.g. to suppress deferral for Pawns on the last rank, or Shogi Knights on the last two ranks). But it could probably bypass intersection with the captured pieces plus supply, as promotion to captured pieces only seem to make no sense with Shogi promotions.

@Fergus

Are these the correct instructions at the end of the presets?

setsystem pieces #mypieces; setsystem flipped #mypieces;

Are these the correct instructions at the end of the presets?

setsystem pieces #mypieces; setsystem flipped #mypieces;

Since the first one worked, the second should too. I think using var instead of the # prefix would be a bit quicker for an array, but it is probably negligible.

@H.G.Muller

Yeah, I couldn't think of an easier way to do it. It would make sense to have that supported more directly; especially since the interactive diagram can do that already.

Initially I did not implement it because the Play-Test Applet is not suitable for specifying a variant with Shogi promotion: the order of the piece definitions is critical in that case, while the Applet inherits the order from the table of available pieces, without any interface for re-ordering them. But now that Diagram specifications can be pasted back into the Applet, this has changed. I guess I should make the textbox in which the HTML for the Diagram appears when you press the button editable. Then users could re-order the piece definitions there, and paste it back. Or perhaps there should even be a button for reloading what is in that textbox.

Isn't it possible to do some syntax checking on the GAME code (e.g. when it gets submitted) to prevent such erratic behavior?

I have added some error messages to make it easier to spot this kind of error in the future. See comment 43913 on the Game Courier History page.

Hello, Is there a way to verify my email address? csarmi

I never saw an answer for this question: what OS exactly is the CVP server running on? If I would know that I could try to migrate the piece-image server to this website, in order to repair the scalable diagram editor.

The site has moved to a new server running a more up-to-date OS and database. In case this breaks anything, please report any issues you're having with the site here.

The site has moved to a new server running a more up-to-date OS with more recent versions of PHP and MariaDB. In case this breaks anything, please report any issues you're having with the site here.

I can't create new game invitations. The full invitation page isn't showing up, only the top part with the game board.

Plus, DZ's comment appeared after a negative amount of seconds.

The site has moved to a new server running a more up-to-date OS with more recent versions of PHP and MariaDB.

What OS exactly is that? If I know that, I could install it on a VM, and try if I can get the piece server to compile.

The OS is Rocky Linux 8.6.

I can't create new game invitations. The full invitation page isn't showing up, only the top part with the game board.

I have fixed that.

Plus, DZ's comment appeared after a negative amount of seconds.

How did you determine that? What should I be looking for?

Look on the 'What's New' Page, for 'Comments or Ratings'. A negative number of seconds is still showing for the latest comment (mine actually), in blue.

P.S. Also, I'm getting a blank page now when I click on 'Games Finished' on the What's New Page (also for 'Your Games on Game Courier', Open Invitations, and Game Courier move [made]).

I cannot access anymore to my page "Your Games On Game Courier". I just get a white screen. Same with "Game Logs".

I cannot access anymore to my page "Your Games On Game Courier". I just get a white screen. Same with "Game Logs".

They worked for me. Maybe this got fixed when I was fixing errors from the PHP error log. So, try it again and let me know if the problem persists.

Right now it works again.

Whenever I try to use a GC preset on a mobile device with a small screen (at least for Android) the board is excessively small, and in the case of images is misaligned. The presets work fine, but the fact that the boards are so small makes them nigh unplayable. The effect gets worse as the board gets larger.

On a mobile device, the board is supposed to be resized to entirely fit on the screen. I suppose this could make things too small for the large games that you sometimes play. Is that what is happening? Or is the board even smaller than it needs to be to fit on the screen?

Can I edit my own message?

On a mobile device, the board is supposed to be resized to entirely fit on the screen. I suppose this could make things too small for the large games that you sometimes play. Is that what is happening? Or is the board even smaller than it needs to be to fit on the screen?

The main problem is that when rendering boards using PNG Image. JPG Image, or GIF Image, the board is smaller than the hitboxes for selecting squares, causing the highlights on the board to become misaligned with the board image.

As for the board size, I think the best option is to have something for disabling fitting the board to the screen in the GC Edit Preset Form (which is off by default).

Now GC's legal moves aren't displaying for some pieces in the GC presets that display legal moves.

Edit: GC legal move highlights are working again.

GC preset legal move highlights work correctly now.

However, now you can't edit comments you are the author of.

Edit: it works now.

However, now you can't edit comments you are the author of.

I just tried to do this, and I succeeded.

And I succeeded again by editing this comment.

File Manager do not work. I have unpublished Orthodia and all pieces’ images are here. But my image of board below the diagram of this board is missing. So before this it wasn’t missing by more than one time. I open File Manager for this page and see “File manager submitted item” — and nothing more! Please fix. Other inserted files of this page are safe and sound. Thank you very much!

When I saw the error messages produced from your use of the File Manager, there was an exclamation mark after the file name. When I looked at the directory with WinSCP, I did not see the exclamation mark, but I did see that its filesize was o bytes. When I tried running the File Manager on your page for Orthodia, it hung without completing the page. Trying a test page, I found that I could upload and modify an image file. I then deleted the image in your directory for Orthodia. The File Manager no longer hung, and I was able to use the File Manager to upload and delete an image for your page. So, try again, and let me know if you have any further problems.

The File Manager page for the Interactive Diagrams article ( https://www.chessvariants.com/index/managefiles.php?itemid=MSinteractive-diagrams ) does not display properly: after printing the header "File Manager for Members" there is nothing else. (So I suppose the PHP script generating it crashes at that point; the page source shows nothing after the </h1>.) File Manager pages on other articles seem to work fine.

This is a bit inconvenient, as I wanted to update the script for the Interactive Diagram.

[Edit] This now works normally, and I have been able to make the upload.

The what's new still shows negative seconds for anything within the last 4 hours. I suspect that it is a time zone issue since it starts at exactly 4 hours worth of seconds in the negative.

I have two Cetran Chess 2 game logs vs. Carlos Cetina (preset made using Play Applet) where when I click on the logs I see only a few words, no diagram etc. (unfortunately I cannot seem to provide links due to that). I was playing with them ok as recently as last night in Ottawa.

[edit: Oops, actually I could have provided links. Thanks, Carlos.]

Links to logs mentioned by Kevin:

https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/play.php?game=Cetran+Chess+2&log=sissa-panther-2022-270-803

https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/play.php?game=Cetran+Chess+2&log=sissa-panther-2022-270-832

I fixed the problem that was stopping the File Manager from working for your Interactive Diagrams page. It wasn't taking into account the return of a false value from one of the functions for turning an image file into a GD image.

GC presets are not displaying at all now.

Edit: The presets will only load when an invitation to play a game has yet to be accepted. or when the preset was authored by Fergus Duniho.

Same for me. GC not displaying the diagrams for the games on-going.

I'm playing 2 games with Kevin Pacey, and I accessed one of them, but I have the same problem with the other Kevin did in his games with Carlos, I only see a little box in the upper left of the screen that says Black and underneath that, Kevin Pacey. Hope this game can be retrieved as it's the one I'm not losing in!

https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/play.php?game=Modern+Shatranj&log=panther-joejoyce-2022-123-929&userid=joejoyce

It seems it's now impossible to delete a submission, even when said submission is completely empty (which is the normal requirement for using the deletion script). I temporarily revived Mitsugumi-Shogi to get an introduction for Mitsugumi Shogi's new page from one of the old page's revisions and then emptied the old page's contents. I then tried to delete it, but that didn't work.

If I could have an editor delete my Mitsugumi-Shogi submission that would be great. Note the hyphen in between "Mitsugumi" and "Shogi"!

Hope this game can be retrieved as it's the one I'm not losing in!

I think it's more a problem of the preset not loading at all rather than a problem of retrievability. The game should still be in the database.

I have a broken game (Modern Makruk). When I click on it, all I get displayed is my opponents name, timer and "make and preview your game". No board, no nothing.

https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/play.php?game=Modern+Makruk&log=makov333-cvgameroom-2022-222-332&userid=csarmi

I have a broken game (Modern Makruk).

The game isn't broken. The preset is not loading. I had the same problem when trying to update Mitsugumi Shogi's preset.

GC presets are working again.

The deletion script for submissions is still not working properly though.

I'm seeing a problem with move highlighting for certain pieces in games using the fairychess include file. This tiger chess preset is an example. All the pieces that have a jump-then-slide move only have move highlighting for the jumping part of the move, although legal moves are still accepted.

I cannot delete a submission that I want to delete, even though said submission is empty. I temporarily revived it (the old Mitsugumi Shogi page) to get something for the new page and then tried to delete the former, but the delete script doesn't work.

Edit: Now it is impossible to update a submission to an empty page, which is a requirement for deletion.

Trying to play Janggi, I got this error. I'm guessing this might be related to the server change

ILLEGAL: swap b10 c10 on turn 1:

The swap command does not have enough arguments.

I've begun working on modifying the queryinc.php script to put less of a load on the server and to provide more helpful navigation links at the bottom. To reduce server load, I'm limiting all searching to a maximum of 500 items at a time. If there are more items, it provides a link for a search that continues the current search where it left off. It also provides options for either narrowing down or redirecting a search. These are visually in the form of buttons, though they are actually links. Using buttons helps create better visual separation between each option. These include a What's New link, a Primary Links link, links by starting letter, links by category, and links by type. If you click on one of these, it should discard previous options for searching by one of these. Otherwise, it is in danger of narrowing down the search to no items at all.

The current version does a complete search and counts up how many items there are for various types or categories of items, which it lists at the bottom with links. A complete search can sometimes overload the server, and I haven't found the counts and links it lists at the end too useful.

I'm thinking that maybe I should provide links for narrowing down the search if there are 500 or more items and links for redirecting the search if there are fewer than 500. However, I don't currently do it that way. Instead, if no type, category, or starting letter has been specified, I call it narrowing down, and if some has been specified, I call it redirecting.

There are some things I still need to get working, such as showing primary links. I think I commented out code for this when it was showing primary links ahead of regular links.

You can compare the old way with the new way by changing mainquery.php to mainquery-test.php in the navigation bar of your browser.

Okay, the error regarding the swap command has been fixed.

Another error is that the links in the credits section of preset pages, saying "This preset uses the _____ settings file," have broken links. The links start with https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/play? when they should have https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/play.php?

Apparently, the site will not allow you to have an empty submission, which is required for the deletion script to work.

Can you add option to decline the latest revision of submission? I suddenly submitted bad revision, and day of my work was failed. Please do it

I believe this is possible. It would be helpful if you posted the link to the page you want reverted.

That's what the Revisions page is for (in the top menu, Edit -> N revisions). Click the revision you want to select, press Ctrl-U to view the source code. You can then copy the relevant HTML sections into the editors in the Edit Page form.

@ Fergus:

The preset won't let me resign in the following log (says to use Back Button on page of code) - earlier I had 2 similar problems resigning in recent games with Carlos with the Sac Chess preset, so something may have changed when we moved to a new server, perhaps:

https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/play.php?game=Capablanca%2520Chess&log=panther-cvgameroom-2022-298-187&userid=panther

From my previous post in this thread:

@ Fergus:

The preset won't let me resign in the following log (says to use Back Button on page of code) - earlier I had 2 similar problems resigning in recent games with Carlos with the Sac Chess preset, so something may have changed when we moved to a new server, perhaps:

https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/play.php?game=Capablanca%2520Chess&log=panther-cvgameroom-2022-298-187&userid=panther

I've since emailed Fergus (he'd not visited CVP site for some days), and he told me the problem with my log above is fixed (I did indeed resign successfully).

Anyone else having trouble resigning from a game due to their log's preset acting up (apparently) may now be able to successfully resign if they wish.

Can you watch Fluidity please, I can’t add new variants but I have 5+ of them in keeping ready.

So how can I add my piece to Piececlopedia?! If I can;)))

Email verification not working (I have checked the spam folder).

Same here. I tried to get this working in the spring. One of the guys (moderators) even tried to fix it manually for me. It just doesn't work. And it'd be very helpful if it did cause I would get notified when my opponents move.

By the way, I believe I did get the verification emails, they just didn't work.

The diffs between page revisions don't seem to work anymore, possibly due to the server move. I get a short part of the introduction and no other text, and generally no highlighted diffs.

The differences between page revisions was handled by code I copied from another website. Fortunately, with the help of the PHP error log, I was able to fix it.

For some reason, when using an image for the board in Game Courier, the file labels are positioned higher than they should be. Here's an example from Chu Shogi.

For some reason, when using an image for the board in Game Courier, the file labels are positioned higher than they should be.

This is now fixed. In Chu Shogi, which you gave as an example, the file labels are now positioned at the right level.

I'm not sure if this is due to the server move, but member-submission of External Link pages doesn't seem to be working. I started doing some debugging, and it seems to die in membersubmissions2.php when trying to execute the replaceitem query (but the error handling there doesn't trigger either), what is currently line 385.

I'll look into it tomorrow.

I'm not sure if this is due to the server move, but member-submission of External Link pages doesn't seem to be working.

As a preliminary test, I made a link page to PyChess, and it worked. So, I have not been able to repeat the problem you encountered. If you have any further problem with it, let me know the time and details do that I can check the error log.

I just tried again, 7:44am CST, itemid MLlichess. I had added MSlichess before realizing I had forgotten to switch to a link item, so that's likely the problem, but I removed the Item and IndexEntry entries (and the MemberSubmissions never got created), and any other locations shouldn't affect the Replace into Item query?

Also, as someone else reported recently: I can't edit another test entry (MLtestlink) to have empty content, but without empty content I cannot use the forms to delete it. Which of these protections do we want to keep?

7:44 am CST would be 13:44 UTC, and I got this for that time:

[23-Jan-2023 13:44:07 UTC] PHP Fatal error:  Uncaught PDOException: SQLSTATE[22007]: 
Invalid datetime format: 1366 Incorrect integer value: '' for column
`chessvariants`.`Item`.`BoardRows` at row 1 in /home/chessvariants/public_html/index/membersubmission2.php:385
Stack trace:
#0 /home/chessvariants/public_html/index/membersubmission2.php(385): PDOStatement->execute()
#1 {main}
  thrown in /home/chessvariants/public_html/index/membersubmission2.php on line 385

Instead of using replace, I should probably use insert if the row doesn't exist and update if it does, as I have already fixed this problem for the update_row function. Since BoardRows is not even a datetime field, this is a weird message, but the underlying problem is that replace is getting an empty string instead of whatever it is expecting.

@Fergus, thanks! I had emptied boardrows in my submission.

I thought in the past I could put board rows/columns/levels/cells as empty and they'd populate as nulls. Either I'm wrong about that, or something has changed. I think being able to leave those fields blank for non-game pages is the most natural.

Should this script be calling update_row (or some other indexing func) instead of its ad hoc query?

What I've done for now is provide an individual default for each parameter instead of giving them all an empty string as the default. I'll do some more work later.

Should this script be calling update_row (or some other indexing func) instead of its ad hoc query?

Yes, these functions are more secure and error-proof than ad hoc code may be, and it's best to not reinvent the wheel each time we need to access the database. So, I have now rewritten the script to use update_row and replace_row. I have left the other code in comments in case I made a mistake and need to reference it.

I had to make a change to a column name in the script, and I still couldn't leave the board size fields blank, but I successfully made the submission. I again got a 401 inside the submission page, but this time it seems to have been because IsMemberSubmitted was 0; I modified the script to set that flag. There's another column IsLink which is set as zero (not being set in the script; both here and in another older ML page of mine, so it's been like this for some time), but doesn't appear to have an adverse effect.

modifyperson.php doesn't seem to work at all

I have now modified it to use the update_row function, which should fix things.

No improvement. Now it just goes to an empty white page (without updating anything in the database)

There was a syntax error, which I've now corrected. As a test, I updated your profile and changed it back.

I cannot use the item quick-edit script (as an editor) because the form does not have the new BoardRealms input (though perhaps the quick edit can be deprecated now that the author list population isn't so slow), and the database apparently won't allow it to be null. Again, I really think allowing nulls for non-game items would be best, and BoardRealms should be defaulted to 1 in any forms.

Yes, I was thinking that we no longer need the quickedit script. It was made back when I was still accessing the site through dial-up. Now that we're all using broadband, dial-up speeds are no longer a bottleneck. Besides that, I have since reduced the size of the edititem script by replacing four separate but identical drop-down lists with a single datalist that gets used by four different fields.

update test

Ok, but then what is the problem?

The Review New Submissions page seems to be skewed towards new submissions now, rather than submissions that have new changes ready for review. This makes approving pages much harder, as you will only see the newest pages rather than the ones that have changes ready for review. Perhaps if the page is sorted by the timestamp of the last action taken on each article this can be rectified without having to worry about the unreliable modification date.

update test

Also, I am getting this error whenever I try to update my previous comment:

Attempting to update comment.

SQLSTATE[42000]: Syntax error or access violation: 1064 You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MariaDB server version for the right syntax to use near 'WHERE `CommentID` = ?' at line 1

Update of Comment with ID of 46749 failed.

I successfully tried updating a couple of my comments, including one on this page, and I successfully updated the comment you referred to, though that was with a different script than you would use. So, I have not been able to repeat what you did.

Looking at the PHP error log, I see multiple errors looking like this:

Failed to prepare SQL in update_row: UPDATE `Comment` SE WHERE `CommentID` = :keyvalue

This was added to the error log by a catch clause I have in update_row().

That "SE" shouldn't be there, but there should be the word "SET" followed by a series of parameters being assigned to table columns. Since we appear to be in the same time zone, these were just over an hour and a half ago, and I was not doing any programming then.

Looking at the individual lines modifying $sql, most lines just append to it, and one uses substr to delete the last two characters. That points to one thing that happened. The $sql string could have this value if it were passed an empty array. After appending nothing to "UPDATE Comment SET ", it chopped off the last two characters and appended " WHERE CommentID = :keyvalue". I added some code to update_row to catch this error before this happens, but I'm still not sure why it happened. This is about what arguments were passed in the function call and not about how the function operated.

I thought of one more thing that could be going on, and I updated update_row to return a warning when it happens. This function now reads the row from the database and checks its values against the values you want to update, and it adds to the SQL query only those values that are different from what is already stored in the database. So, if you tried to update a comment without changing anything, it wouldn't add any values to the query. In case this happens, it will now exit early with a warning.

Problem when trying to change password: "Cannot continue, because no row in the Person table could be identified."