Hi! The other day I created an open game invite, which stood for 2-3 minutes unaccepted. As a result, I tried to cancel it, but it couldn’t be cancelled. If memory serves I closed the tab and drank a glass of water. Upon logging in just now I received the above message. I have lots of love for OGS so not complaining, but wondering what I can do to avoid causing this problem again. To be clear, as far as I can tell the game never began. I killed the tab before anyone accepted. Thank you in advance and apologies for the issue!
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You can try to refresh page in browser.
You can go to “Home” or “Profile” page, all ongoing games are there.
“Killing a tab” just disconnects your browser - it leaves our server wondering what happened to you. You might be forced to do that if it seems like the server is broken, but on the whole it’d be nice if you only disconnect when a game is over.
The game did start - stone defender shared the link to it. Your opponent won “by disconnection” - correctly, because you disconnected.
It’s likely that you couldn’t cancel the challenge because the game was literally just starting.
Don’t take this as too much of a “reprimand”. It’s intended to be a request.
It says “it’s possible you didn’t notice this game start” … it says that because this does happen from time to time: when you are white (as you were) it’s really easy to miss the “game started” - you don’t get a “white one” in the top right corner your-turn indicator.
Thanks for asking.
It may be that this was just “one of those weird internet/browser things” … where either you or your browser didn’t see the start. If you can keep an eye out for that next time, that’s all you need to do to avoid causing the problem.
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I’ll add that if the game starts you can still cancel it within the first few moves and it won’t count as a loss.
You’ll see a “cancel” button instead of the usual “resign” button.
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Hi, thanks very much for your answer. I can say with certainty that the “cancel” button was not working. Having decided that it was taking too long to find an opponent, I tried to press the cancel button multiple times with no effect. Then, frustrated with what appeared to be a site malfunction and in the total absence of any go boards appearing, I killed the tab. I suppose in the future I can log out instead, but from my perspective, there was not one moment when a game board appeared. Rather, I created a game invite, found myself unable to cancel said game invite, and killed the tab. I don’t consider that I’ve done anything wrong. Had anything appeared on screen, even for an instant, to indicate that my invite had been accepted by an opponent, I would certainly have begun to play. Had it appeared in the final seconds prior to killing the tab, I would have logged on again. But this didn’t happen. I guess we can chalk this up to some kind of system burp, but as far as I’m concerned I can’t participate in games that fail to come up on screen, a situation exacerbated by an invite cancellation button that cannot be pressed. Again, apologies for any issues caused, but I don’t acknowledge that I’ve made any error of any kind. I’ll add in closing that my attempts to press the cancel button were multiple and spaced out over probably 30-40 seconds. It wasn’t a one-time thing.
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Thank you! I’m aware of this, but at no time did a game board appear. Right up until I deleted the tab there was nothing but the game invite screen and a “cancel” button that seemed greyed out and could not be pressed to any effect. Somehow, I created an un-cancellable game invite, and from my perspective I killed the tab prior to anyone accepting it.
Logging out also do not necessarily prevent game from starting.
If you stop looking at something, it doesn’t mean it stops to exist.
To be sure that open game invitation no longer exist you need to see /Play page where it does not exist. If you refresh page in browser and you still able to see your open game invitation after it, therefore it continues to exist even if you can’t cancel it.
Black circle in top right may indicate that game started, you can try to click it to go to the game if it fails to open automatically.
If Black circle fails to appear too, you can go to “Home” or “Your Profile” page, there is list of currently ongoing games.
Only if you don’t see your challenge on both /Play and “Home” pages, then it surely do not currently exist.
You don’t have to do all of it every time, only when something very strange happens like when cancel doesn’t work.
One of possible explanations why cancel doesn’t work is because game actually already started and /Play page fails to see it, that’s why I talk about also looking at “Home” or “Your Profile” pages.
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Let me thank you again for taking the time to respond, and also let me repeat that I love and enjoy OGS. Thank you to you and everyone who has created it and worked to maintain it.
”If you stop looking at something, it doesn’t mean it stops to exist.” This is profound. If by this incident we learn that it can sometimes happen that an open game invite becomes un-cancellable, then let me suggest the following entry for the FAQ (or something like it):
”Once an open invite is created it will exist within the system. In the rare event that the game is accepted but you cannot see it, it will be necessary to locate the game within the list of active games, which you can find in either the “Home” or “Your Profile” pages. If this rare instance occurs and you leave the page without playing, you will lose by forfeit. Therefore, in the event of an open invite which is not accepted, please locate it in the lists and … find another way to cancel it prior to leaving the site.”
… or words to that effect. I will try to avoid this problem in the future. Thank you again.
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On this point - it may have been a site temporary glitch or a connection glitch to your browser.
In which case, you totally should kill the tab.
This will trigger the dialog that you got. And you would be totally justified to think “huh, I got this because of a glitch, no worries” and move on.
If it happens repeatedly then reporting here about it is definitely helpful, because it’s repeated occurrences that will draw attention. A one-off is neither here nor there.
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Yeah totally - there’s a TBD in the code specifically saying that.
As with most things that seem obvious and easy… you’d think it’d be obvious and easy… but no-one has gotten to it yet.
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