A guy on the Italian Python mailing list has just installed 2.3rc2 on top of his existing 2.2 and IDLE doesn't start. Specifically when he gives an explicit command at the DOS Box prompt of: python.exe "C:\Programmi\Python23\Lib\idlelib\idle.pyw" he sees from Task Manager that 2 python.exe instances start, one disappears after a few seconds, and on the DOS Box appear the messages: Python subprocess socket error: Connection refused, retrying.... Python subprocess socket error: Connection refused, retrying.... Python subprocess socket error: Connection refused, retrying.... Connection to Idle failed, exiting. *HOWEVER* IDLE runs fine IF he starts it while connected to the internet! This clearly points to a configuration/installation problem with his Win2000 SP3 box and I'm working with him to pin that down -- see if his sockets work at all when he's not on the net, etc, etc. Nevertheless I'm worried by this problem: no doubt it's something he needs to fix by correcting his Win2000 installation and configuration, *BUT*, just as doubtlessly a huge number of Windows machines out there must suffer from similar misconfiguration issues. If on all of those misbegotten boxes IDLE 1.0 silently refuses to start with no clarification nor error-message at all to the user as to WHY (typical newbies won't THINK of running idle.pyw at the prompt, they'll keep banging on icons and getting silent failure as a result), I predict a flood of help request to the main and help lists, AND many potential new users simply giving up on Python without even such help requests -- that would be pretty sad. I can't reproduce the problem myself -- I've tried deliberately breaking my Win/98 configuration but local sockets keep getting opened happily, and I have no Win/2000 box to try things on. Should I nevertheless try bug-reporting or even hacking a patch that puts out some kind of visible error message to the user if socket connection fails, even though I can't try it out myself? Does anybody agree with me that this doubtlessly trivial issue has the potential to do Python substantial damage, making it critical enough to address between 2.3rc2 and 2.3 final...? Alex
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