[Tutor] Idle needles

[Danny Yoo]

On Sat, 12 Feb 2005, Lobster wrote:

> Idols subprocess didn't make connection Either Idle can't start or
> personal firewall is blocking the connection =========
>
> Now I am getting the added message that the "socket connection is
> refused" (recently updated to the latest Zone Alarm)

Hi Ed,

That's further evidence that suggests that Zone Alarm is fighting IDLE.


Let me see... here's a section of the IDLE documentation README that talks
about this issue:

"""
IDLE displays a new message upon startup:  some "personal firewall"
  kinds of programs (for example, ZoneAlarm) open a dialog of their
  own when any program opens a socket.  IDLE does use sockets, talking
  on the computer's internal loopback interface.  This connection is not
  visible on any external interface and no data is sent to or received
  from the Internet.  So, if you get such a dialog when opening IDLE,
  asking whether to let pythonw.exe talk to address 127.0.0.1, say yes,
  and rest assured no communication external to your machine is taking
  place.  If you don't allow it, IDLE won't be able to start.
"""


Just to nail this issue down: try turning ZoneAlarm off, just for a
moment, and then start up IDLE.  (You can always turn ZoneAlarm back on
after this experiment.)  If you don't see any problems with IDLE, then
it's almost certainly a ZoneAlarm vs. IDLE confrontation, and we can focus
on that.

Good luck to you!