error in the DDE conversation with Pythonwin

[Mark Hammond]

Steve Canfield wrote:

> When I try to start Pythonwin on my machine (Athlon 800), I get the
> following error box:
>   Python for Win32
>   There was an error in the DDE conversation with Pythonwin
> I click on okay and it seems to finish loading okay.
> I'm running:
> PythonWin 2.1.1 (#20, Jul 26 2001, 11:38:51) [MSC 32 bit (Intel)] on
> win32.
> under Windows Me.
> 
> If I bring up my task list, Pythonwin is listed more than one time.  I
> think this is because the first instance never starts up.  I have a
> desktop icon to Pythonwin and I generally have to click on it a couple
> of times before Pythonwin will start up (giving plenty of time between
> startup attempts).
> 
> Any ideas what the problem could be?  I searched for this error
> message on Google and didn't get any hits.

The problem is generally that some _other_ application is running on 
your machine that is not processing messages.  This is a common problem 
with DDE applications.

One good example is MSVC.  If you are using MSVC and at a breakpoint, 
Pythonwin will not start.  When you stop the debug session, Pythonwin 
then pops up.

You can avoid this by running "pythonwin.exe /nodde".  However, this 
will *always* start a new instance of Pythonwin.

Mark.