XBoard doesn't connect to FICS

[PeterK]

Hi,

Apologies if this looks too basic! On MacOS Mojave I'm trying to get XBoard to connect to FICS and it doesn't work (basically there is no action on the ICS window). I've tried telnet from the command line to freechess.org and works great and I've tried launching XBoard with different parameters but nothing works, something I'm doing wrong? thank you in advance! Peter

[H.G.Muller]

I have no Mac. Are you using XBoard from the OSX App or from another source? How exactly do you invoke it? Do you type a command from the command line, double-click a .desktop icon, or what?

[PeterK]

I have no Mac. Are you using XBoard from the OSX App or from another source? How exactly do you invoke it? Do you type a command from the command line, double-click a .desktop icon, or what?

Hi and thanks for your reply. I've tried either command line (with the -icchost freechess.org parameter) or via a script in both cases nothing happens. If I telnet from the command line I get to FICS with no issue at all. Any help much appreciated! Do I need to customise something?

[H.G.Muller]

It would help if you gave the exact command you use. F.e. "-icchost" is not a valid option: it isshould be "-icshost". It is also not the only option you have to give: a correct command line would be

xboard -ics -icshost freechess.org

This would not correct for network lag, however. To do that you would need a Mac version of timeseal, and write something like

xboard -ics -icshost freechess.org -icshelper ./timeseal

(depending on where you put the timeseal binary file).

[PeterK]

It would help if you gave the exact command you use. F.e. "-icchost" is not a valid option: it isshould be "-icshost". It is also not the only option you have to give: a correct command line would be

xboard -ics -icshost freechess.org

This would not correct for network lag, however. To do that you would need a Mac version of timeseal, and write something like

xboard -ics -icshost freechess.org -icshelper ./timeseal

(depending on where you put the timeseal binary file).

Hi, that is the way I'm trying to launch it specifically:
open -a XBoard --args -ics -icshost freechess.org -icshelper timeseal

Everything opens up nicely but it simply doesn't connect to the site. Again I've tried telnet from the command line and it works perfectly so I'm wondering if there is any setup file I need to customise or anything else? I'm using MacOS Mojave. Any ideas more than welcome!

Peter

[PeterK]

Any ideas from anyone?

[H.G.Muller]

Not really. The command seems OK. I don't know how you have installed timeseal, and if the command 'timeseal' is good enough to run it, or that the command ./timeseal is required. But that cannot really be the problem, because if timeseal cannot be found the XBoard would close with a fatal error "Connection closed by ICS", and apparently you don't see that. What happens if you run without the -icshelper option? Does it work then? And what happen if you connect just with the command "timeseal freechess.org 5000" ? Does that work? This should behave as an ascii terminal.