"Error Loading Engine" in Firefox... I get this MOST OF THE TIME!

The memory slider had reverted to 16MB.

It happened again.

Although the slider is now at 256 MB, I got the "Engine loading engine" again just now in this game:

Here is the console info:

Lichess is open source! https://lichess.org/source lichess.min.js:37:22050
An AudioContext was prevented from starting automatically. It must be created or resumed after a user gesture on the page. lichess.min.js:35:8931
The resource at “https://lichess1.org/assets/_GOiw58/images/board/svg/brown.svg” preloaded with link preload was not used within a few seconds. Make sure all attributes of the preload tag are set correctly. black
error { target: XMLHttpRequest, isTrusted: true, lengthComputable: false, loaded: 0, total: 0, srcElement: XMLHttpRequest, eventPhase: 0, bubbles: false, cancelable: false, returnValue: true, ... }
analysisBoard.min.js:1:30920

@palom

You did great with the console log, that's all I can ask for. The problem you are experiencing is distinct from the Calculating Moves... variety that plagues mcgoves and others.

I am wondering what platform your Firefox is running on (specifically your CPU architecture) because your logs suggest a failure trying to download the least powerful of our WASM analysis scripts (there are 3). This indicates that either our feature detection code is failing, for whatever reason, or your Firefox does not properly support SharedArrayBuffer cloning. Sorry if that's TMI, but it's why I'm curious about your CPU arch.

Back to your bug, none of the settings we are currently fiddling with have an effect on the analysis module your Firefox is trying to fetch, so tweaking those are a red herring. I'm also worried about CCleaner. I've never used that software but if it claims to remove 'unused' internet website data then maybe it's why you to have to refetch stockfish.wasm so often.

First though, please clear site data (for lichess.org only) and disable any browser extensions aside from UBlock Origin or whatever basic ad blocker you're running. Temporarily shut down ccleaner (or at least the part that digs into browser caches & databases), and see if things clear up. I'd also like to get you on the 'HCE' or 'NNUE' analysis engine assuming your machine can run it, but baby steps.

For what it's worth, I just played a game on a library computer. When I checked, before trying to load the engine, I found the hamburger slider set to 16 mb, at the very left end of the slider. I then reset it to 256 and went to run the engine, but somehow it was already switched to the green "running" state.

I grabbed the console data for this computer (again, not the one that has been having trouble, but instead a library computer running Windows 10 or 11. Here it is, for constrast:

Lichess is open source! https://lichess.org/source lichess.min.js:37:22050
An AudioContext was prevented from starting automatically. It must be created or resumed after a user gesture on the page. lichess.min.js:35:8931
SF: No such option: Analysis Contempt analysisBoard.min.js:1:27290
The resource at “https://lichess1.org/assets/_GOiw58/images/board/svg/brown.svg” preloaded with link preload was not used within a few seconds. Make sure all attributes of the preload tag are set correctly. white

AGAIN, NOTE, THIS IS NOT FROM THE PROBLEM COMPUTER.

Interesting. Now, forget your experience at the library completely and address my previous post. TLDR:

Question: What is your OS & CPU?

Next steps:

1. Delete site data (cookies, databases, website data) for lichess.org
2. Shutdown ccleaner or prevent it from deleting from browser cache.
3. Disable any extensions outside of ublock origin or your basic ad blocker.

See how it goes for a few days.

OS is Windows 10.

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E7400 @ 2.80GHz 2.80 GHz

Disabled the two extensions I was running.

Will remove site data (cookies and data after I send this response, since when I did it BEFORE sending, the response was deleted);. I don't know of any "databases" associated with lichess that I should delete.

CCleaner only works when you tell it to clean your drive. So far as I am aware it is not otherwise active. So I am not going to do anything about that for now.

So having done all that, I logged in again and played a game. When i went to the post-game analysis, the slider was set all the way to the left, at 16MB. I pushed it to 64, and toggled back to the main analysis move list. Got "Error Loading Engine" again.

Didn't grab the console data this time.

Yes, after making any analysis setting change - you can expect to have to reload. It has to reinitialize the analysis module with the new parameters. So this most recent hiccup could be unrelated to your ongoing problem.

That probably means @palom's previous "success" with the memory slider is a red herring. If it forces a reload, it could make the engine suddenly fail, or suddenly correct itself.

On the other hand, it could be an easy way to try and force the error to happen. Just keep sliding the slider.

Well not necessarily. Analysis is supposed to apply changes immediately (but when building software, one gets in the habit of reloading all the time). It could be unrelated to his problem, but it's still a useful data point.