`Cannot execute command` error when running cutechess cli about cutechess

[Bulmenisaurus]

Thanks, I found my issue. Turns out I didn't have the UCI code pulled. Thanks for the help!

[DeveloperPaul123]

It may be parsing your command all as one token so that the engine isn't starting. Can you instead just use the Chess-Challenge.exe as the command and then pass uci MyBot as args?

[DeveloperPaul123]

CLI would be:

cutechess-cli -engine name="MyBot" cmd="Chess-Challenge.exe" arg="uci" arg="MyBot"

[Bulmenisaurus]

Thanks! Now I can see the gui for my bot appearing, but now I get a new error:

Terminating process of engine MyBot(0)
Finished game 2 (sf-lvl1 vs MyBot): * {No result}
Score of MyBot vs sf-lvl1: 0 - 0 - 0  [nan] 0
Finished game 3 (MyBot vs sf-lvl1): * {No result}
Score of MyBot vs sf-lvl1: 0 - 0 - 0  [nan] 0
Finished game 4 (sf-lvl1 vs MyBot): * {No result}
Score of MyBot vs sf-lvl1: 0 - 0 - 0  [nan] 0
Elo difference: nan +/- nan, LOS: nan %, DrawRatio: nan %
SPRT: llr 0 (0.0%), lbound -inf, ubound inf

Player: MyBot
   "No result": 3
Player: sf-lvl1
   "No result": 3
Warning: Could not initialize player MyBot:
Finished match

seems like a problem with my engine, since having stockfish fight against itself works perfectly. Any way to debug this, maybe see what my engine is sending from the cli?

[DeveloperPaul123]

You could try running your Chess-Challange.exe directly from a CLI and input params directly. You can also do the same with a debugger attached to see what it's doing with the input arguments.

[Jakur]

I have the same issue on Windows when parsing arguments to an engine directly or through engines.json with "command": "mybot.exe --uci" in version 1.3.1. This appears to be a regression since downgrading to version 1.3.0 fixes the issue.

[Claes1981]

Affects me too.

cutechess-cli --version
cutechess-cli 1.3.1
Using Qt version 5.15.10
Running on openSUSE Tumbleweed/x86_64

Copyright (C) 2008-2023 Ilari Pihlajisto, Arto Jonsson and contributors
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.  There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

command:

cutechess-cli -engine conf=Chess-System-Tal-2.00-v21_6t_hash5161 -engine conf=Stockfish-22032822_pgo_6t_nowdz_spl2_spd43_hash5161_sm652_mo2801 -each tc=1+1 restart=on option.Ponder=false option.OwnBook=false -games 2
Elo difference: nan +/- nan, LOS: nan %, DrawRatio: nan %
SPRT: llr 0 (0.0%), lbound -inf, ubound inf

Player: Chess-System-Tal-2.00-v21_6t_hash5161
Player: Stockfish-22032822_pgo_6t_nowdz_spl2_spd43_hash5161_sm652_mo2801
Warning: Cannot start engine Chess-System-Tal-2.00-v21_6t_hash5161:
Cannot execute command: wine /partitions/Sandisk/xfs/media/data/chess/engines/Chess-System-Tal/Chess-System-Tal-2.00-v21/Chess-System-Tal-2.00-v21-E1019-Elo.opt-avx2.exe
Finished match

engines.json:

   {
        "name": "Chess-System-Tal-2.00-v21_6t_hash5161",
        "command": "wine /partitions/Sandisk/xfs/media/data/chess/engines/Chess-System-Tal/Chess-System-Tal-2.00-v21/Chess-System-Tal-2.00-v21-E1019-Elo.opt-avx2.exe",
        "workingDirectory": "/partitions/Sandisk/xfs/media/data/chess/engines/Chess-System-Tal/Chess-System-Tal-2.00-v21/",
        "protocol": "uci",
        "initStrings":[ "setoption name Hash value 5161", "setoption name Threads value 6"]
    },