Arch Linux

What version are you using? I'm using it now in 0.10rc1-1...

Both beta4 and rc1 have the problem on both my i686 and my x86_64 machines.
I have attached the output of `pacman -Qet` of my i686, so it is possible to check for a hidden dependency.

Running pychess from the console did not yield any useful errors.

Try removing ~/.local/share/pychess

No good

Please post the console output. Also is the pychess engine completely missing in the selection dialog or can you select it and then it freezes?

With no pychess folders in ~/ it goes like this:
---
$ pychess
** Message: pygobject_register_sinkfunc is deprecated (GstObject)
/usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pychess/System/uistuff.py:438: GtkWarning: GtkSpinButton: setting an adjustment with non-zero page size is deprecated
self.glade = gtk.glade.XML(addDataPrefix("glade/%s" % filename))
12:45:04 Default Warning: Tried to set combobox to 1, but it has only got 1 items
---
The pychess engine is completely missing.

Again, but now with python (version 3) installed:
---
$ pychess
** Message: pygobject_register_sinkfunc is deprecated (GstObject)
/usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pychess/System/uistuff.py:438: GtkWarning: GtkSpinButton: setting an adjustment with non-zero page size is deprecated
self.glade = gtk.glade.XML(addDataPrefix("glade/%s" % filename))
/usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pychess/Players/engineNest.py:341: FutureWarning: The behavior of this method will change in future versions. Use specific 'len(elem)' or 'elem is not None' test instead.
if not engine2:
12:46:59 ('Python', '12:11:59.494') Error: No child processes

12:46:59 ('Python', '12:11:59.494') Error: File "/usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pychess/Players/PyChess.py", line 3

/usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pychess/System/SubProcess.py:126: Warning: g_io_channel_read_line: assertion `channel->is_readable' failed
line = channel.next()#readline()
12:46:59 Default Warning: Engine PyChess.py failed discovery:
---
The pychess engine is present but does not work (a game cannot be started against it).

This time a ~/.config/pychess/engines.xml gets created, though. Changing all references to python into references to python2 in that file makes the pychess engine playable.
Removing python (version 3) makes the pychess engine invisible to the program again.

The following patch, relative to /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pychess, fixes the problem. I suppose it also fixes another python2/3 issue with the shatranj.py engine.


--- Players/engineNest.py.orig 2010-11-11 10:38:22.968899605 +0100
+++ Players/engineNest.py 2010-11-11 10:31:44.946738649 +0100
@@ -66,9 +66,9 @@
<engines version="%s">
<engine protocol="cecp" protover="2" binname="PyChess.py">
<meta><country>dk</country></meta>
- <vm binname="python"><args><arg name='0' value="-u"/></args></vm></engine>
+ <vm binname="python2"><args><arg name='0' value="-u"/></args></vm></engine>
<engine protocol="cecp" protover="2" binname="shatranj.py">
- <vm binname="python"><args><arg name='0' value="-u"/></args></vm>
+ <vm binname="python2"><args><arg name='0' value="-u"/></args></vm>
<args><arg name='0' value='-xboard'/></args></engine>
<engine protocol="cecp" protover="2" binname="gnuchess">
<meta><country>us</country></meta>