Because regrtest.py was importing test_socket_ssl without catching the ImportError exception:
If that is the reason you cannot run it, then it seems it works just fine. There is nothing wrong with tests getting skipped.
It wasn't getting skipped, it was crashing the regression testing harness. test_unittest catches the ImportError, but this was imported directly from regrtest.py.
So, is this an "expected skip" or not?
No. IIUC, "expected skips" are a platform property. For your platform, support for threads is expected (whatever your platform is as log as it was built in this millenium).
OK. I'll put in a check for this. In fact, here's a patch: Index: Lib/test/regrtest.py =================================================================== --- Lib/test/regrtest.py (revision 58052) +++ Lib/test/regrtest.py (working copy) @@ -1108,7 +1108,6 @@ class _ExpectedSkips: def __init__(self): import os.path - from test import test_socket_ssl from test import test_timeout self.valid = False @@ -1122,8 +1121,13 @@ if not os.path.supports_unicode_filenames: self.expected.add('test_pep277') - if test_socket_ssl.skip_expected: - self.expected.add('test_socket_ssl') + try: + from test import test_socket_ssl + except ImportError: + pass + else: + if test_socket_ssl.skip_expected: + self.expected.add('test_socket_ssl') if test_timeout.skip_expected: self.expected.add('test_timeout') Bill