Problems with downloaded hands at teaching tables

[paulg]

At a teaching session yesterday a number of kibitzers had problems following the completion of hands. They appeared to be frozen at the "lesson text" stage and could only close BBO and then reattach to the table.

 

The table host (me) runs the latest software, 3.5.1. I do not know what version the others were running.

 

Two or three people reported this problem. It is possible that it was some sort of connection delay, as I had a couple of long pauses yesterday during the session.

 

I also had a problem with downloading new hands. I ran into a situation where I tried to send a new hand to the table when the table wanted to say "downloading new hand". I could not access the pop up window where it wanted me to hit the OK button, and the "contacting server" blue window remained in focus. All I could do was hit the "log off" button and then return.

 

I know reports like this are frustrating as I cannot reproduce the problem on demand. If there is additional info that would be useful, let me know and I'll try to capture it next time.

 

BTW, I've seen this problem before (i.e., not new) and it doesn't happen every session.

 

Cheers

 

Paul

[inquiry]

Hi paul...

 

I suggest you remove the VG header from your teaching file hands. The one hand that crashed sent something like the following to the table...vg|BridgeBase....|md|etc.....

 

You don't even technically need the players name (pn|south name, west name, north name, east name|) although I tend to always have them. One of the crashes was definenitly associated with the vg command, because I saw a incomplete vg table before the system died.

 

Now, having said that, I don't know for sure if the vugraph line (vg||) necessarily caused the crash becasue I have shown the first hand from a match (vg hands) without a crash, but at least on two of the problem hands this looked like the culprit. Also, I thought these were hands you prepared, so I wonder why the vg text was there anyway.

 

BTW, great session you ran yesterday.

 

Ben

[paulg]

Ben,

 

The hands prepared yesterday were just entered in using MOVIE mode and then saved. However I did add in the possible bidding, which is superfluous, so perhaps this made it into a vg file. I'll experiment later this week.

 

Thanks,

 

Paul

[csdenmark]

Maybe somebody at this thread can help me. I can only load 1st deal from a file to a teaching mode table. When I redeal system switch to random deals. Do I really need to prepare so that only 1 deal in each file?

[Erkson]

 

The hands prepared yesterday were just entered in using MOVIE mode and then saved. However I did add in the possible bidding, which is superfluous, so perhaps this made it into a vg file. I'll experiment later this week.

 

 

I noticed something strange with .lin files created by "Movie".

Here is an example :

vg|Uploaded Deal,,I,3,3,,,,,|rs|,,|pn|pg||qx|o3|

md|1S3HJ76432DAQ32CA3,SA2HAQ9D4CQJ96542,SKJT9875HT85D97C7,

SQ64HKDKJT865CKT8|

sv|e|

mb|---1H2C4H5Cdrppp|

pn|pg||

pc|H5|pc|HK|pc|H2|pc|H9|pg||

pc|CK|pc|CA|pc|C2|pc|C7|pg||

pc|S3|pc|SA|pc|S5|pc|S4|pg||

mc|11|

 

I will focus only on the "md" tag (hands) and the "mb" tag (biddings) because all other differences are perfectly normal.

 

The two mentioned tags works differently in a movie .lin file than in a .lin file created by /myhands (history.lin).

 

Here is an example :

pn||st||st||

md|3S89THTD38C3468TJA,S3KH3689KD29AC57K,S24QAH47JD46JQC9Q,|

rh||ah|Board 1|sv|o|mb|1N!|an|11/12-14|

mb|p|mb|2S!|an|transfer to clubs|mb|p|mb|3C!|an|complete transfer|mb|p|mb|p|mb|p|pg||

pc|C2|pc|C4|pc|C5|pc|CQ|pg||pc|C9|pc|H2|pc|CA|pc|C7|pg||

pc|D3|pc|D2|pc|DQ|pc|DK|pg||pc|HA|pc|HT|pc|H3|pc|H4|pg||

pc|D5|pc|D8|pc|DA|pc|D4|pg||pc|S3|pc|SQ|pc|S5|mc|9|

 

As you can see, in a movie .lin file :

1. all 4 hands are saved

2. cards are in decreasing order from A to 2

3. biddings are contiguous, i.e not separated by |md| tags.

 

In a history .lin file :

1. only 3 out of 4 hands are saved, and the viewer has to compute the missing hand

2. cards are in increasing order from 2 to A

3. biddings are separated by |md| tags.

----------------------

Those two differently formated .lin files are read by the same viewer. It may be a survival of early times of the software, and it may be very difficult to avoid it.

It makes the viewer software more complicated that if the format were unique.

 

And to make things even more complicated, a .lin file created by vugraph has the 4 hands of the movie style and the non-contiguous biddings of the history file !

 

Three formats for about the same result.

 

The viewer deals with those 3 formats (and, btw, with .pbn too), so hat off ! ;), but one single format for md and mb would be good too !.

 

Erkson

[paulg]

Maybe somebody at this thread can help me. I can only load 1st deal from a file to a teaching mode table. When I redeal system switch to random deals. Do I really need to prepare so that only 1 deal in each file?

 

Yes, known feature that may be fixed some day, but not near the top of the list.

 

paul

[inquiry]

Maybe somebody at this thread can help me. I can only load 1st deal from a file to a teaching mode table. When I redeal system switch to random deals. Do I really need to prepare so that only 1 deal in each file?

 

Hi Claus,

 

This is a problem that was discussed in an earlier thread. Here is a workaround I suggested, but the cure maybe as bad as the disease.

 

http://forums.bridgebase.com/in...msg6787#msg6787

[csdenmark]

Thank you Ben!

 

I see I need to put 1 deal into each file only. Pity - what we really need is the ability to put partnership bidding tables in teaching mode or better the other way around. What I really need is that NS in teaching mode always has bid-able hands. The other features would be nice of course - but I will be able to manage without.

 

The ability to replay a log-file in standard or teaching mode is an option on ZONE. As BBO has programmed ZONE I assumed this feature would be available here too and that it was only me as a poor novice who failed.