Troubleshooting

Common problems

“standard output is not a terminal”. Run wopr directly in a terminal, not through a pipe or a redirect. On Windows, use Windows Terminal. mintty without ConPTY is not supported.

“TERM=dumb”. The terminal says that it cannot draw a full screen. Use another terminal. wopr --games and the other printing options still work.

“TERMINAL TOO SMALL”. WOPR needs at least 80 columns and 24 rows. Make the window bigger. The session carries on where it was.

wopr is not found. Open a new terminal window: the one you installed from may not know about the new program yet. The install lines put the program in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\wopr on Windows, and in ~/.local/bin on macOS and Linux. When that folder is not on your PATH, the lines add it: in ~/.zprofile or ~/.bash_profile on macOS, and in ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc on Linux. go install puts the program in Go’s bin folder. The .deb puts it in /usr/games, which is not on root’s PATH. As root, or in a small container, run /usr/games/wopr. The .rpm puts it in /usr/bin. The Windows installer uses the same folder as the install line. It puts that folder on your PATH only if its Add WOPR to PATH box was ticked. Run the installer again to tick it. The Mac app adds no wopr command. Open WOPR from Applications, or install the command with the Terminal line in Command line install methods.

Windows protected your PC. Microsoft Defender SmartScreen says this about a program from the internet that it does not recognise, such as wopr.exe or its installer downloaded with a web browser. Click More info. It names the file, and it names the publisher as Unknown publisher, because wopr is not signed yet. Then click Run anyway.

Windows says Smart App Control blocked wopr or its installer. When Smart App Control is on, it blocks every program that is not signed. wopr is not signed yet, and neither is its installer. Smart App Control has no exception for one program. The only way to run wopr is to turn Smart App Control off: open Windows Security, then App & browser control, then Smart App Control settings. Recent Windows updates let you turn it on again later. Before them, only reinstalling Windows could. Most PCs have it off, or in evaluation mode, which blocks nothing.

macOS says “WOPR” Not Opened, or that Apple could not verify WOPR. macOS says this about an app that Apple did not check, and Apple has not signed WOPR yet. Click Done. Then open System Settings, then Privacy & Security. Scroll down to Security, and click Open Anyway beside the line about WOPR. The button stays there for about an hour after you tried to open WOPR. If it is gone, open WOPR again first. macOS asks once more: click Open Anyway (or Open), and enter your password. Since macOS 15 Sequoia, Control-clicking WOPR and choosing Open no longer works. If macOS then blocks wopr again when Terminal starts it, allow that the same way.

macOS says WOPR “is damaged and can’t be opened”. macOS also says this about some apps that Apple did not sign. Check the .dmg you downloaded, as Verifying binaries says, or download it again. Then drag WOPR to Applications, and clear its download mark in Terminal: xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/WOPR.app. That turns off macOS’s malware check for WOPR alone, so do it only for a file you checked. Please report it too, with your macOS version.

On a Mac, opening WOPR does nothing, or Terminal shows an error. Drag WOPR to Applications in Finder, and open it from there. When a downloaded app was not moved with Finder, macOS runs it from a hidden copy, which can disappear while WOPR hands itself to Terminal.

WOPR always opens in Terminal on a Mac. The app opens Apple’s Terminal, whichever terminal you use. To play in another terminal, such as iTerm2, run /Applications/WOPR.app/Contents/MacOS/wopr in it. Or install the wopr command with the Terminal line in Command line install methods.

WOPR is not in the app menu after installing the .deb or the .rpm. Log out and back in. Some desktops notice a new app only then. The Linux (any) line adds no menu entry. Only the packages do.

sudo says you are not in the sudoers file. On Debian, when a root password was set during installation, your account cannot use sudo until it is in the sudo group. Add it with the root password: su -c "adduser $USER sudo". Then log out and back in, and paste the install line again.

An old version still starts after you update. Another copy comes first on your PATH. On Linux and macOS, type -a wopr lists every copy. In PowerShell, Get-Command -All wopr does. Delete the copies you do not want. An earlier version of these pages put wopr in /usr/local/bin, and sudo rm /usr/local/bin/wopr deletes that copy.

Strange colours. Try another theme (--theme green), or turn colour off with NO_COLOR=1.

The mouse wheel changes what I typed. Some terminals (GNOME Terminal and others built on VTE) turn the wheel into the Up and Down keys on a full screen. Those keys step through the lines you typed. Scroll back with PgUp and PgDn. wopr leaves mouse reporting off, so that you can still select and copy text.

Text types too slowly. Press any key to show the rest at once, or run with --instant.

Something else. Run with WOPR_DEBUG=1. Then report it with the debug log.

Debug log

If something goes wrong, run wopr with WOPR_DEBUG set to 1:

WOPR_DEBUG=1 wopr                                          # Linux and macOS

$env:WOPR_DEBUG = 1; wopr; Remove-Item Env:WOPR_DEBUG     # Windows PowerShell

With the Mac app, which adds no wopr command, run this in Terminal: WOPR_DEBUG=1 /Applications/WOPR.app/Contents/MacOS/wopr.

wopr then writes a debug log, and it prints the log’s path when it exits. The log records the session’s seed, the terminal’s size and the slow work. It never records what you type. wopr keeps the log in your user cache folder:

Each session adds to the end of the log, starting with a line that names the version and the seed. So the newest session is at the end. If wopr stops with a message before its screen appears, it writes no log. The message is what to report.

Getting help

• Questions: ask in GitHub Discussions.
• Something is broken: open a bug report. Say what you did, what happened, and what wopr --version prints (or that it would not install). Attach the debug log, with the seed if you used one.
• A new feature, or something that differs from the film: open a feature request, or discuss the idea first in Ideas.
• A security problem: report it privately, as the security policy says, not in a public issue.

Search the issues first: someone may have reported it already.