A Couple Annoying Fritz 19 Problems Solved

    The Fritz program is now up to version 21, but for those like myself who are running older versions (for me, Fritz 17 and 19) version 19 has some annoying bugs. Common complaints are opening book issues (I use my own book, not the program’s, so I have not experienced any issues) and engine errors resulting in crashes during Tactical Analysis. 

    After getting a new laptop I opted not to use Fritz 20 because it is so bloated with features I never use that it takes up a lot of storage space. I like the appearance of Fritz 19 and it has some features that I do like, but a couple of nasty problems came up that have discouraged me from using it. Consequently, it has been back to Fritz 17. 

    It has taken some rather futile internet research and considerable experimentation, but I have found a solution for the problems, but they are cumbersome and annoying.

    Here is an odd bug I never saw before; it showed up after a Tactical Analysis.

    Obviously 1Rxd8 is some kind of error. Clicking on it resulted in this position:
 

 

    In my opinion, Fritz 19 is “over-engineered”. First, after doing a Tactical Analysis and saving the game the program sometimes changes the names of the players both in the header and the database! There are technical reasons for this that I don’t fully understand, but it seems to have something to do with Fritz’ attempt to standardize players’ names. It’s frustrating to save a game only to find out the program has changed the header and saved the game with white and black showing the same name. 

    The solution to this problem is to do a Save Game As, not just Save. This will save the game with the names unaltered. You will then need to delete the original game in the database. 

    Annoying problem #2 is that when doing a Tactical Analysis and the program inserts alternative opening lines (“Novelties”) from the database into the game. The problem is that the lines are often too long and you’ll want to truncate them by simply using the Delete Remaining Moves command. What you cannot do is edit the game information shown here in red. 

 

    The solution that enables you to edit that information is quite awkward, but here is how it’s done. 

 

1. Create a pgn database 

2. Perform a Tactical Analysis 

3. Save Game As 

4. Select Other 

5. Select pgn files and locate and select the pgn database 

6. Hit OK 

7. Close the game window and re-open it 

8. Select Open Database, Other, select pgn files and open the database 

9. Open the game you just saved 

 

    The red will have disappeared and can be edited. You can the save it to a cbh database if you want by using the Save Game As command. Note that this will result in you having a duplicate game and you must then delete the original. 

    All this is annoying and time consuming, but if you don’t have an older version of Fritz it’s the only way I have discovered of avoiding the two problems. If anyone knows of a better way please let me know!