If you try to obtain too many games from the history of players on ICC,
the database will respond with

"Game database temporarily unavailable."

Does anyone here know what parameters cause this to happen, and what
causes it to become available again?

I can get 100 PGNs quite quickly with something like:


aics% spgn chesscoach -3
[Event "ICC 15 0 u"]
[Site "Internet Chess Club"]
[Date "2007.02.20"]
[Round "-"]
[White "ronlad"]
[Black "ChessCoach"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ICCResult "White resigns"]
[WhiteElo "796"]
[BlackElo "1877"]
[Opening "French defense"]
[ECO "C00"]
[NIC "FR.01"]
[Time "06:07:16"]
[TimeControl "900+0"]

1. e4 e6 2. Ne2 d5 3. exd5 exd5 4. d4 Nf6 5. f3 Be7 6. h3 O-O 7. g4 Re8 8.
g5 Nh5 9. h4 Bd6 10. f4 Bxf4 11. Bxf4 Nxf4 12. Kf2 Bg4 13. Qd2 Nxe2 14. Bxe2
Rxe2+ 15. Kf1 Rxd2 16. Nxd2 Qd6 17. a3 Qf4+ 18. Ke1 Qe3+ {White resigns} 0-1


(I can repeat for various players and/or various game numbers).

But after 1000 it will respond with "Game database temporarily unavailable."

I'm trying to find out what I can do to get the histories in as short a
time as possible.

Could for example downloading them with a 5 sec gap between them allow
you to do it without the database blocking one?


--
Dave (from the UK)

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It is always of the form:
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