socket.error: [Errno 98] Address already in use

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

In message 
<2f830099-4264-47bc-98ee-31950412ad43 at q21g2000prm.googlegroups.com>, cerr 
wrote:

> I get a socket error "[Errno 98] Address already in use" when i try to
> open a socket that got closed before with close(). How come close()
> doesn't close the socket properly?

The usual case this happens is you have a client connection open at the 
time, that was not properly terminated. Then the TCP stack goes through a 
holdoff period (2 minutes, I believe it is), to make absolutely sure all 
packets destined for the old connection have completely disappeared off the 
entire Internet, before it will let you open a socket on the same port 
again.