Sudoku autofill changes "locked" squares

[Matthew Thomas]

Binary package hint: gnome-games

When I use the arrow keys to select one of the squares that are given at the start of a puzzle (the squares with bold numbers that you aren't supposed to change, the ones that you can't use the mouse to select) and use the Fill feature (either with ctrl-f or pressing the "Fill" button), sometimes the number in the square will change. It seems like it changes depending on what other numbers would be valid in that square and only when there are two valid numbers.

For example, in one particular case if this "locked" square were "unlocked" and didn't have a number in it, either a 6 or a 2 would be valid for that spot (i.e. pressing the hint button would yield the numbers 6 and 2). However, this is a "locked" spot with the number 6 in it and when I arrow over to it and press the Fill button (or ctrl-f) this "locked" square changes into a 2. Pressing the Fill button again changes it back into a 6. It's not randomly choosing whether a 6 or a 2 should go there because it will always switch to the other number.

I haven't checked out the source code but it seems most likely to me that when the "fill" function is narrowing down the numbers that can fit in that spot legally and is checking the numbers in the containing group-of-9, it is mistakenly ruling out the number in its own square as well and then ignoring that fact that that square is uneditable.

The guidelines state that I should include what I expected to happen, but I think it's pretty obvious that I expect all "locked" squares (the squares that are given when you start the puzzle) to remain uneditable in all ways. In the paper versions of Sudoku you can't just erase the beginning numbers and write in your own - that's cheating :)

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: amd64
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.04
MediaBuild: Ubuntu 9.04 "Jaunty Jackalope" - Release amd64 (20090420.1)
NonfreeKernelModules: fglrx
Package: gnome-games 1:2.26.1-0ubuntu2
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: gnome-games
Uname: Linux 2.6.28-14-generic x86_64

[Derek Kaye (kayedj)]

Confirmed here.

[xteejx (xteejx)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. I am not able to reproduce this bug with the development release - Maverick Meerkat. It would help us greatly if you could test it with the Live CD of Maverick in case it is hardware dependent. You can find out more about the development release at http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/. Thanks again and we appreciate your help.

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

We are closing this bug report because it lacks the information we need to investigate the problem, as described in the previous comments. Please reopen it if you can give us the missing information, and don't hesitate to submit bug reports in the future. To reopen the bug report you can click on the current status, under the Status column, and change the Status back to New. Thanks again!.