freezing up

[onoway]

over the past little while I have had a couple of problems here and I want to know if anyone else has experienced these and/or if anyone has any suggestions about what to do about them?

 

The worst one in "freezing up" while playing, sometimes in a tourney, when everything just stops happening for me. I seem to be there but no cards appear to be played, no chat comes up and I cannot move excpet to log off. Sometimes if I wait, there will eventually be a surge of activity, with things happening in quadruple time until caught up, other times I get disconnected

 

The other thing is that sometimes (often after an event such as above) it takes a LONG time to log in, as either nothing happens there either, or I get INTO BBO and then the player list starts to load and then stops. The only way around that that I have found is to go out and try to come back in again. At times it has taken up to 10 minutes to get back into BBO.

 

This is beginning to make me very uneasy about playing in tourneys (not fair to the others or the TD AND I dont want to get banned) but it is also giving me a complex every time someone stops to think...I worry that I am frozen as there is no way to tell except by the onging lack of activity and it is happenning so frequently. generally about once a day or more.

 

I have talked to my server people and they have adjusted my settings a couple of times, I have done search and destroy for spybots and tried generally to clean the computer and am at a loss to know what to do now? I t is casting a definite shadow over amything I do here now, so any help /suggestions would be hugely appreciated. :P

[KiwiBridge]

You are not alone - this has been happening to me with increasing frequency lately. Most times I manage to get back to the tourney in time but not always. It is very frustrating, especially as I have high speed broadband. On one occasion it took me nine minutes to log on to BBO.

[Echognome]

I had this problem before. I believe it was related to my ISP, but I never fully resolved it. When I moved (and changed ISPs), I didn't have the problem again (using the same computer). It's clear from your description that you are getting lagged and that's why it catches up and you see the rapid catch up for the time you were lagged. One way to find out it's you that's lagged and not someone thinking is to look at the Lobby counter on the right. If your connection is working, you will see that the number of people in the lobby is changing all the time. If you are stuck on a fixed number in the lobby, then you know that you are lagging. Unfortunately, I don't know of a good remedy. Try working on it with your ISP. Make sure they aren't limiting any ports.

[navit]

This is also happening to me

[emelnl]

It happens to me 2... but cause my Messenger has problems too then.. it seems the Net :o

 

Although i think the latest version it a bit sensitive,, we must live with it;)))

[uday]

If you talk to your isp, ask for someone to test connectivity to bbo.bridgebase.com

 

This is a name that translates to any of a few "IP addresses"

 

Your BBO program connects to our BBO program on port 9999

[mike777]

This has started happening to me in the last month or so also during tourneys.

[pedeye]

I have just joined the forum - mainly as a result of searching for the cause of an incident in tournament play yesterday.

 

I was defending against a 7♣ and held the Ace♠ which during bidding is on the left side first card. I put the cursor on the A♠ and as I clicked the cards transposed to the trump club suit on my left and the Jack ♣ played instead of the Spade Ace. I immediately asked for an undo - which are normally not allowed - but in courtesy the opponents can accept the request. The play of the Ace would have set the contract by 1 - which would have been the only EW plus score. Instead - the opposition refusing to undo - and the TD had to accept that - achieved 17 points - with the rest of the field at a loss of 3 to 5 points (except my side minus 17) - for a differential across the field of approx 20 points - except us at minus 34. :(

 

The technical points - as indicated above - I have had interruptions and burst of activity while playing in the past - periodically - but since upgrading my Norton Internet security on February 7 it seems more frequent. I have also noticed frequently that when a play of 4 cards was completed - the trick would move to the played file - spontaneously. In the past I thought it might have something to do with Windows Automatic update or the NAV update that takes place automatically.

 

But this is far beyond anything I have experienced before - in addition to altering the entire result of the tournament for every player in it - as well as the cumulative points for the entire 15 day series for all who played.

 

I have asked BBO support about this and plan to change my Internet explorer security to Windows as the default. I use Netscape 7.1 - but IE has considerable influence on downloads - pop-ups etc. in the Netscape program ....pedeye

[inquiry]

I have just joined the forum - mainly as a result of searching for the cause of an incident in tournament play yesterday.

 

I was defending against a 7♣ and held the Ace♠ which during bidding is on the left side first card. I put the cursor on the A♠ and as I clicked the cards transposed to the trump club suit on my left and the Jack ♣ played instead of the Spade Ace. I immediately asked for an undo - which are normally not allowed - but in courtesy the opponents can accept the request. The play of the Ace would have set the contract by 1 - which would have been the only EW plus score. Instead - the opposition refusing to undo - and the TD had to accept that - achieved 17 points - with the rest of the field at a loss of 3 to 5 points (except my side minus 17) - for a differential across the field of approx 20 points - except us at minus 34. :(

 

The technical points - as indicated above - I have had interruptions and burst of activity while playing in the past - periodically - but since upgrading my Norton Internet security on February 7 it seems more frequent. I have also noticed frequently that when a play of 4 cards was completed - the trick would move to the played file - spontaneously. In the past I thought it might have something to do with Windows Automatic update or the NAV update that takes place automatically.

 

But this is far beyond anything I have experienced before - in addition to altering the entire result of the tournament for every player in it - as well as the cumulative points for the entire 15 day series for all who played.

 

I have asked BBO support about this and plan to change my Internet explorer security to Windows as the default. I use Netscape 7.1 - but IE has considerable influence on downloads - pop-ups etc. in the Netscape program ....pedeye

Welcome to the forum.

 

If you play online with the cards shown as a deck of cards, the suits are rearranged after the bidding such that TRUMPS are on the left. So while the ACE of spades was the left most card during bidding, once the final contract is set as clubs, the left most card will be your highest club. A couple way to avoid this, is to play in the text mode (I play in the text mode almost exclusively, because this and other misclicks are greatly reduced, since there is no rearrangement of the display AND the space to click the card you want is much wider).

 

I think you can choose how fast the cards are played, slow it down if you like. You can also point you mouse to the played stack and see the last trick should it get turned over too quickly. I am not sure what, if anything this has to do with norton security or which browser you use. Give the text mode a try, many people prefer it (I usually kibitz with the cards in the deck rather than text mode however).

[pedeye]

Thanks Ben.

This has been a distinct change with the same settings that I have used as altered by BBO from time to time. All of the bahaviour I described are anomalies - that some others appear to be experiencing also. I have changed Windows firewall to the default security - will let all know if this changes anything. Would not like to change my ingrained viewing habits unless the problem cannot be resolve - yopu know "Old dogs". ..pedeye

[fred]

I also suggest that you try getting into the habit of never double clicking in BBO.

 

Double clicks are never necessary in the BBO interface and using them can sometimes cause problems (for example if you are 4th to play to a trick and you win the trick a double click could cause you to lead to the next trick without meaning to do so).

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[mrdct]

A possible solution to the problem of making a wrong lead after the cards get resorted with trumps on the left would be for the opening lead to be made "face down" as it is in face to face bridge in many jurisdictions.

 

Basically, when you make the opening lead the card moves out in front of you into a played position, but to the other three players only the back of the card is visible until you click on it to reveal it. Until such time as you click on your lead card to reveal it, you can undo it without reference to your opponents.

[1eyedjack]

A possible solution to the problem of making a wrong lead after the cards get resorted with trumps on the left would be for the opening lead to be made "face down" as it is in face to face bridge in many jurisdictions.

 

Basically, when you make the opening lead the card moves out in front of you into a played position, but to the other three players only the back of the card is visible until you click on it to reveal it. Until such time as you click on your lead card to reveal it, you can undo it without reference to your opponents.

Would this provide any benefit OTHER than guarding against a misclick at trick 1? If that is the sole benefit I would say it is an OTT solution. I do not think that misclicks on opening lead are a regular problem. This thread is the first occurrence that I have witnessed in the forums and I have never encountered it at the table or otherwise heard it mentioned "second hand". And selecting the tabular orientation of cards is a solution that already exists which solves that.

 

If this suggested solution is worthwhile, presumably it would be just as worthwhile extending it to all cards played, not just trick 1. I would certainly like to have the option to switch that off, myself.

[JRG]

There were discussions of the problem in the past. I think the more experienced BBO members are generally aware of it.

 

I learnt about it quickly as I have a slow dial-up connection and there is sometimes a delay after the auction is over before the trump suit is moved to the left. I consciously wait for that to happen before I lead.