Chess problem? Anyone?

Many thanks for the advice BB, unfortunately it didn't resolve the problem,I did however learn a little more about navigating while trying this solution. I'm a bit worried there may be more sinister reasons for this prog not running properly. I downloaded a free version of audacity software to rip some vinyl (yes i am that old) and have since learned that there are some malicious versions masquerading under that name (zipped file containing malware). Like i said in the previous post i downloaded a free version of macscan which was recommended by someone on this forum, and a full scan only showed 4 tracking cookies which i deleted. Unfortunately i had trashed audacity before i ran the scan so we'll never know if it was moody but the reason i mention this is the timeline. Downloaded audacity- later received malicious pop up demanding money or it would freeze my computer - could not get out of pop up screen so had to force quit- (didn't link two events at first as i ignore this sort of thing) played chess that night - think it worked that night but then following evening it crashed - hunted for solution and eventually trashed audacity and ran scan. So, i may be paranoid, and i certainly know next to nothing about osx/trojans or whatever, but it all seems a bit of a coincidence. There is however another possibility that comes to mind and that is that i'm not sure if the software saves the previous chess games you've played and goes a bit crazy (the technical term) trying to process all the info on launch. As i never delete or manage the game history i wonder if it could be a factor. The dreaded spinning disc is testament to it thinking about something. If only i knew what. Looks like i may be in for a very expensive phone call as my support has long expired but i'll let everyone know what happened as i found very little recent mention of this programme failing although i believe it's not totally unheard of. Anyone got any thoughts on this? It may just be something simple but it's got me stumped.

Thanks for the suggestion Eric. I will look into it. But i must confess that the reason i bought a mac is because i know next to nothing about computers. So even the simplest things are outside my comfort zone. I basically use my laptop for music and the only other thing i used regularly was chess. I was hoping that there might have been a simple solution or that i was missing something obvious but i think now i'll just have to bite the bullet and get a genius to look at it. I really appreciate the sound advice i'm receiving but feel a bit out of my depth with the last post as it took me about half an hour to try baby boomers idea so the last one would probably take me till next xmas.I may try Eric's suggestion, but don't hold your breath everyone, it may take a while.

Just a thought about Eric's suggestion. Is this a way to display the error report you get that you can send to apple? I saw this done in another post and somebody replied with a solution based on looking at what looked like C3P0 had blown his brains out with a shotgun on a sheet of paper. I suspect the guy who deciphered it was probably a nexus 6 replicant. I may get a bit brave and try this but a bit worried about making matters worse. Wish me luck!!

Very good point, i just checked my download history and it shows 'audacity-macosx-ub-2.0.6-2.dmg'. I just googled that and it led to what looks to be the authentic site at 'sourceforge.net'. Does anyone know if this seems ok? I'm afraid i can't remember for sure if it was this site but it looks familiar. As i said i deleted audacity after reading in another post that there were some unsafe versions.It is probably just all coincidence but everything seemed to go wrong straight afterwards - malicious pop up followed by chess crashing. I've always been careful about what i download (apart from this time) and i've never had this type of pop up before. Maybe the pop up itself managed to infect my computer and audacity was ok, i don't know how these things work. It may all just be just coincidence but i'm not technically proficient enough to know. Like i say, i'm probably in over my head. By the way, i have a time machine with a recent back up, could i return to factory settings and reinstall from earlier back-up, would that get rid of malware picked up after that date? Just a thought although i'd rather not do this as it would be bound to go wrong with the luck i'm having at the moment.

I thought it looked ok. But thanks for the reassurance. I now think it may be a coincidence. Just clutching at straws really. This pop up was very disturbing and demanding money etc for copyright violation. The wording was so bad that i knew it wasn't genuine but it said it was encrypting and freezing my computer unless i paid money in some weird way. I could not get off the page and had to force quit using power button. As i didn't authorise anything i assumed that was the end of it. I think virtually the next thing i did was play chess. This is why i linked these events together, it just seemed a little too suspicious to not mention it in my post. Somebody who understands these things might be able to reassure me that this couldn't be the reason my chess is crashing but i'm just laying out all the info i can think of that might be pertinent hoping someone can shed some light on this. The rest of my apps seem ok and overall there seems to be no other ill effects. I'm now worried that to play chess i'll have to interact with another human being and that just won't do at all.

Eric, i downloaded etresoft and ran it and i've got the output on clipboard but i'm darned if i can manage to cut and paste it in a reply. Told you i was clueless. I'm looking into it now and hope to post it soon. Any tips?

Eric, is this the fellow?

Problem description:

Chess app not working

EtreCheck version: 2.1.6 (109)

Report generated 15 January 2015 16:48:35 GMT

Download EtreCheck from http://etresoft.com/etrecheck

Click the [Support] links for help with non-Apple products.

Click the [Details] links for more information about that line.

Click the [Adware] links for help removing adware.

Hardware Information: ℹ️

MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2013) (Technical Specifications)

MacBook Pro - model: MacBookPro10,2

1 2.6 GHz Intel Core i5 CPU: 2-core

8 GB RAM

BANK 0/DIMM0

4 GB DDR3 1600 MHz ok

BANK 1/DIMM0

4 GB DDR3 1600 MHz ok

Bluetooth: Good - Handoff/Airdrop2 supported

Wireless: en0: 802.11 a/b/g/n

Battery Health: Normal - Cycle count 211

Video Information: ℹ️

Intel HD Graphics 4000 - VRAM: 768 MB

Color LCD 2560 X 1600

System Software: ℹ️

OS X 10.8.5 (12F45) - Time since boot: 6:38:3

Disk Information: ℹ️

APPLE SSD SM256E disk0 : (251 GB)

disk0s1 (disk0s1) <not mounted> : 210 MB

Macintosh HD (disk0s2) / : 250.14 GB (100.17 GB free)

Recovery HD (disk0s3) <not mounted> [Recovery]: 650 MB

USB Information: ℹ️

Apple Inc. BRCM20702 Hub

Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller

Apple Inc. Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad

Apple Inc. FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in)

Thunderbolt Information: ℹ️

Apple Inc. thunderbolt_bus

Gatekeeper: ℹ️

Mac App Store and identified developers

Kernel Extensions: ℹ️

/System/Library/Extensions

[not loaded] com.wdc.driver.1394HP (1.0.11 - SDK 10.4) [Support]

[not loaded] com.wdc.driver.1394_64HP (1.0.1 - SDK 10.6) [Support]

[not loaded] com.wdc.driver.USB-64HP (1.0.3) [Support]

[not loaded] com.wdc.driver.USBHP (1.0.14) [Support]

Launch Daemons: ℹ️

[loaded] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist [Support]

User Launch Agents: ℹ️

[running] com.amazon.music.plist [Support]

User Login Items: ℹ️

iTunesHelper Application (/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/iTunesHelper.app)

WDDriveUtilityHelper UNKNOWN (missing value)

WDDriveUtilityHelper Application (/Applications/WD Drive Utilities.app/Contents/WDDriveUtilityHelper.app)

WDSecurityHelper UNKNOWN (missing value)

Internet Plug-ins: ℹ️

FlashPlayer-10.6: Version: 16.0.0.257 - SDK 10.6 [Support]

Flash Player: Version: 16.0.0.257 - SDK 10.6 [Support]

AmazonMP3DownloaderPlugin101749: Version: Unknown

JavaAppletPlugin: Version: 14.3.0 - SDK 10.8 Check version

QuickTime Plugin: Version: 7.7.1

3rd Party Preference Panes: ℹ️

Flash Player [Support]

Time Machine: ℹ️

Skip System Files: NO

Mobile backups: OFF

Auto backup: NO - Auto backup turned off

Destinations:

Data [Network]

Total size: 3.00 TB

Total number of backups: 12

Oldest backup: 2014-04-13 04:38:20 +0000

Last backup: 2015-01-08 17:14:03 +0000

Size of backup disk: Excellent

Backup size 3.00 TB > (Disk size 0 B X 3)

Top Processes by CPU: ℹ️

4% WindowServer

1% WebProcess

1% fontd

0% coreservicesd

0% notifyd

Top Processes by Memory: ℹ️

885 MB WebProcess

215 MB Safari

146 MB iTunes

112 MB WindowServer

94 MB mds

Virtual Memory Information: ℹ️

4.29 GB Free RAM

2.13 GB Active RAM

431 MB Inactive RAM

1.73 GB Wired RAM

355 MB Page-ins

0 B Page-outs

Diagnostics Information: ℹ️

Jan 15, 2015, 10:11:07 AM Self test - passed

Jan 14, 2015, 04:41:00 AM /Users/[redacted]/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/Chess_2015-01-14-044100_[redac ted].crash

Jan 14, 2015, 04:34:38 AM /Users/[redacted]/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/Chess_2015-01-14-043438_[redac ted].crash

Jan 14, 2015, 03:47:56 AM /Users/[redacted]/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/Chess_2015-01-14-034756_[redac ted].crash

Jan 13, 2015, 03:14:44 AM /Users/[redacted]/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/Chess_2015-01-13-031444_[redac ted].crash

Jan 13, 2015, 01:40:33 AM /Users/[redacted]/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/Chess_2015-01-13-014033_[redac ted].crash

Jan 13, 2015, 01:11:23 AM /Users/[redacted]/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/Chess_2015-01-13-011123_[redac ted].crash

Jan 13, 2015, 12:51:25 AM /Users/[redacted]/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/Chess_2015-01-13-005125_[redac ted].crash

Jan 12, 2015, 06:48:59 PM /Users/[redacted]/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/Chess_2015-01-12-184859_[redac ted].crash

Jan 12, 2015, 02:37:26 PM /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/Kernel_2015-01-12-143726_[redacted].panic [Details]

Jan 11, 2015, 09:34:00 PM /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/Kernel_2015-01-11-213400_[redacted].panic [Details]

I tried the chess while in safe mode. It let me into the app and showed a weirdly magnified picture of the bottom left hand side of the board. I did notice there were 2 games open but i couldn't find any way to delete them in case the outstanding games were demanding too much processor power or something. I understand that chess programs are quite demanding for the cpu, but it's only a wild guess like i say. I was thinking of posting the error report you get that you can send to apple but i'm not sure if it contains sensitive information in all those numbers. I saw someone post a section of one in another thread and somebody (probably a model T1000 terminator) managed to decipher it and solve a problem. Also, if this is safe to post then how do you copy the error report as i can't find a way? P.S. Safari safe mode is how i would imagine life would be on windows.

Thanks for the tip but as i've deleted it now the downloads list is just telling me that i downloaded it and has no get info option that i can find. However i now think on balance that it was a legitimate download and somewhat of a red herring. By the way, the info i got about unsafe versions was actually from the audacity forum under the title 'Download virus potential'. It states that the sourceforge site is the one that's ok, so as my download list shows that address i'm pretty confident now that this was pure bad timing. It's free so i deleted it just to eliminate one possibility but it has made no difference so i think we can rule this out as the cause now. Maybe i'm looking too deep for a reason when it's just the chess app that's at fault. I just hate these outrageous synchronistic events that muddy the water. I've been toying with the idea of upgrading to yosemite recently but the reviews are a bit shaky and the reported wi-fi problems make me unsure, but i wonder if anyone knows if this upgrade would clear any outstanding problems or more or less be like resetting or returning to factory settings? (an option i'm considering with mountain lion).