Puzzle difficulty level keeps getting reset to normal

A few days ago I set my puzzle difficulty level to 'easier (-300)' as that tends to give me puzzles that are still challenging but where I can usually figure out what is going on in finite time. Yet, every day I log in and open a puzzle (say, the puzzle of the day) I find that the difficulty is reset to 'normal'.

So far I have been unable to figure out what is causing this annoying behavior. Closing the training page and reopening it is not enough to trigger it, nor is logging out and in again. But after several hours of puzzle inactivity the difficulty level is apparently reset again, certainly on the next day.

Anyone who has a clue or could even point me at the source code?

One possibility would be that clearing the browser cache resets the settings to ‘default’.

Looks like it is that way by design.

For me it makes a lot of sense to assume people would usually want puzzles at their rating, but sometimes going higher or lower. As people are not good at remembering things, they will often forget to reset to "normal" afterwards and only find out after doing a couple of puzzles with the wrong difficulty.

Like the day trip odometer in the car... it keeps adding up even after short breaks, but if you park for quite a while, it starts at 0 again.

@nadjarostowa said in #3:

Looks like it is that way by design.

For me it makes a lot of sense to assume people would usually want puzzles at their rating, but sometimes going higher or lower. As people are not good at remembering things, they will often forget to reset to "normal" afterwards and only find out after doing a couple of puzzles with the wrong difficulty.

Makes sense, but I have decided that I usually do not want puzzles at my rating anymore because this means either sitting at each puzzle for about half an hour on average or dropping my puzzle rating considerably.

Anyway, I have located the source code and if I understand https://github.com/lichess-org/lila/blob/master/modules/puzzle/src/main/PuzzleSession.scala correctly, the difficulty setting is part of the puzzle session and only lasts as long as it, so it is to be expected that it gets reset after a few hours of puzzle inactivity. I guess I have to live with that.

I used to have this problem but it was fixed at some point to remember the difficulty (normal, easier, etc). It was for me like you describe, after some period of time it would go back.

It has quite reliably remembered it for some time now, across days, etc. It's saved in the browser so that it needs to be set for different devices, but then it's good to go.

I haven't noticed the old behavior coming back for me so I don't know if it's a site problem, but you might try clearing your cache and then once you set the difficulty again, seeing if the setting "sticks" after that.

I definitely appreciate that the setting is remembered as I've been wanting to stick to "easier" for the most part.

Puzzle difficulty should be remembered these days, I found the commit that implemented the feature at https://github.com/lichess-org/lila/commit/253b3d39cdbb91376f98b613c1ff90263e0bbce6.

However, for me this does not work although I never delete Lichess's cookies in my browser. This leaves me rather puzzled (pun intended).

Dirty hack: You can use your (current or a secondary) account and just miss some puzzles on purpose, to get into your desired puzzle rating zone - kinda sandbagging. Nobody cares since the puzzle rating value doesn't affect other players but just your ego...

Thanks for the suggestion, @derkleineJo, but no thanks. I know puzzles are not a competition, but aiming for the 3000 mark keeps me motivated to give my best and try to find the solution.

My current workaround is to open the daily puzzle, solve it if I had not already done so, and then set the difficulty to "easier" which replaces the current puzzle with a fresh one. That minimizes the risk of self-deception by skipping difficult puzzles.

This case has my interest because it has been a big improvement for me to have the setting remembered. I usually do puzzles in zen mode so I often missed it when it flipped back, too, in the olden times.

I see the setting in the lila2 cookie: puz-diff=easier

As it happens I've been doing "mate in 2" puzzles at harder level and it seems to be remembering that okay, too, but I will surely report back if I see the same problem cropping up. :-)

@scarpentus said in #9:

This case has my interest because it has been a big improvement for me to have the setting remembered. I usually do puzzles in zen mode so I often missed it when it flipped back, too, in the olden times.

I see the setting in the lila2 cookie: puz-diff=easier

After setting the difficulty to "easier", I see that as well. However, after logging out, shutting my browser down and turning off the computer over night, it was gone when I logged back in today.