Unable to run IDLE Under Windows

[Jonathan Polley]

I have one account on a WindowsXP machine that refuses to run IDLE (or
any other python script that uses Tk). Other people can login to that
PC and IDLE runs just fine, so it is not an installation issue. When
the person who has the problem logs into another PC the problem follows
them. Any ideas as to what might me wrong?

This is the traceback from IDLE:

C:\Python20\Tools\idle>..\..\python.exe idle.py
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "idle.py", line 12, in ?
PyShell.main()
File "C:\Python20\Tools\idle\PyShell.py", line 732, in main
root = Tk(className="Idle")
File "c:\python20\lib\lib-tk\Tkinter.py", line 1482, in __init__
self.tk = _tkinter.create(screenName, baseName, className)
TclError: unknown color name "white "

C:\Python20\Tools\idle>

Thanks in advance,

Jonathan Polley

jwpolley rockwellcollins com

 

[=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Marian_Aldenh=F6vel?=]

Hi,

> Any ideas as to what might me wrong?

TclError: unknown color name "white "

There is a space after "white" in this error-message. If this string comes
from some per-user configuration that may well explain your problem.

Ciao, MM

 

[Jonathan Polley]

Hi,



There is a space after "white" in this error-message. If this string comes
from some per-user configuration that may well explain your problem.

Ciao, MM

Where do I have to go in order to fix it? It follows them from
computer to computer...

Thanks,

Jonathan Polley

 

[Peter Otten]

I have one account on a WindowsXP machine that refuses to run IDLE (or
any other python script that uses Tk). Other people can login to that
PC and IDLE runs just fine, so it is not an installation issue. When
the person who has the problem logs into another PC the problem follows
them. Any ideas as to what might me wrong?

Perhaps your configuration files contain bad data:

"""
# IDLE reads several config files to determine user preferences. This
# file is the default config file for general idle settings.
#
# When IDLE starts, it will look in
# the following two sets of files, in order:
#
# default configuration
# ---------------------
# config-main.def the default general config file
# config-extensions.def the default extension config file
# config-highlight.def the default highlighting config file
# config-keys.def the default keybinding config file
#
# user configuration
# -------------------
# ~/.idlerc/config-main.cfg the user general config file
# ~/.idlerc/config-extensions.cfg the user extension config file
# ~/.idlerc/config-highlight.cfg the user highlighting config file
# ~/.idlerc/config-keys.cfg the user keybinding config file
#
# On Windows2000 and Windows XP the .idlerc directory is at
# Documents and Settings\<username>\.idlerc
#
# On Windows98 it is at c:\.idlerc
"""

This is from a newer version of python, but your configuration may have a
similar layout. The easiest way to test whether I guessed the cause of your
troubles correctly should be to rename the .idlerc directory so that idle
cannot find it anymore and then try to start it again.

Peter

 

[Brian van den Broek]

Peter Otten said unto the world upon 2005-02-07 09:14:

Jonathan Polley wrote:




Perhaps your configuration files contain bad data:

"""
# IDLE reads several config files to determine user preferences. This
# file is the default config file for general idle settings.

Peter

Thanks for posting that, Peter. It helped me work out my problem that
I posted about a few days back <http://tinyurl.com/3s7gn>.

Could I ask where did you get the content from? I've searched my HDD
for some of the contained phrases with the Windows tools I have at my
disposal, but didn't manage to find the text you posted. (If I'd been
able to find it, I'd have been able to solve my problem days ago.)

Thanks and best,

Brian vdB

 

[Peter Otten]

<SNIP details of config filenames and purposes>

Thanks for posting that, Peter. It helped me work out my problem that
I posted about a few days back <http://tinyurl.com/3s7gn>.

You're welcome.

Could I ask where did you get the content from? I've searched my HDD
for some of the contained phrases with the Windows tools I have at my
disposal, but didn't manage to find the text you posted. (If I'd been
able to find it, I'd have been able to solve my problem days ago.)

I guess the showstopper has been the unusual suffix .def for "default
configuration"

On Linux it's in

/usr/local/lib/python2.4/idlelib/config-main.def

Should be easy to translate for Windows.

Peter

 

[maxwell]

Perhaps your configuration files contain bad data:

# IDLE reads several config files to determine user preferences. This
# file is the default config file for general idle settings. ....
# On Windows2000 and Windows XP the .idlerc directory is at
# Documents and Settings\<username>\.idlerc

I have a similar problem: I can't run the Python IDLE app (i.e. the
file pythonw.exe), on either of two different machines. However, I'm
using WinXP (and Python 2.4), and there is no .idlerc directory as
listed above. One of hte machines had a .idlerc file under the Python
dir, and renaming it didn't help. I just ran a search on the entire
hard drive of the other machine, and the only .idlerc dir is in my
CygWin home directory. Since I'm not trying to run idle from a CygWin
bash shell etc., I don't think it's looking there. (Just to make sure,
I renamed that dir...no luck.)

I uninstalled and re-installed Python 2.4, no change. When I try to
run pythonw.exe, there is no indication that anything happens. CPU
usage jumps for a fraction of a second, then nothing.

I tried running 'idle' under CygWin, and it gives the following error
(lengthy traceback omitted, let me know if I should include that too):

C:\cygwin\bin\python2.4.exe (2904): *** unable to remap
C:\cygwin\bin\cygssl-0.9.7.dll to same address as parent
(0x740000) != 0x750000
2 [main] python2.4 3080 fork_parent: child 2904 died waiting
for dll loading

Any other ideas why IDLE won't run?

 

[Steve Holden]

I have a similar problem: I can't run the Python IDLE app (i.e. the
file pythonw.exe), on either of two different machines. However, I'm
using WinXP (and Python 2.4), and there is no .idlerc directory as
listed above. One of hte machines had a .idlerc file under the Python
dir, and renaming it didn't help. I just ran a search on the entire
hard drive of the other machine, and the only .idlerc dir is in my
CygWin home directory. Since I'm not trying to run idle from a CygWin
bash shell etc., I don't think it's looking there. (Just to make sure,
I renamed that dir...no luck.)

In this case it's possible (and this is just a guess) that you are both
running with what are called "roaming profiles". In this case your
".idlerc" file may appear somewhere on a network drive that's
automatically mapped rather than a subdirectory of C:\Documents and
Settings.

You should be able to find it under XP with the command

echo %HOMEPATH%

Take a look in that directory and see if there's an .idlerc.

I uninstalled and re-installed Python 2.4, no change. When I try to
run pythonw.exe, there is no indication that anything happens. CPU
usage jumps for a fraction of a second, then nothing.

You wouldn't expect anything - pythonw.exe is the no-console
interpreter, so if you don;t give it a program to run it will terminate
pretty much immediately, and if the program doesn't use windowing then
you won't see anything happen even if you *do* run something.

I presume you *can* run python.exe

If so then try running IDLE with python -v to get more information about
what's going on.

I tried running 'idle' under CygWin, and it gives the following error
(lengthy traceback omitted, let me know if I should include that too):

C:\cygwin\bin\python2.4.exe (2904): *** unable to remap
C:\cygwin\bin\cygssl-0.9.7.dll to same address as parent
(0x740000) != 0x750000
2 [main] python2.4 3080 fork_parent: child 2904 died waiting
for dll loading

This is a known issue with Cygwin. Fortunately you can fix it with the
rebaseall command. You could try the following steps to fix Cygwin,
which is currently unable to load a DLL at the same address in a forked
sub-process. Note this is voodoo, so no guarantees ...


1. Close all Cygwin windows (and stop Cygwin services, if any are running).

2. In a new standard Cygwin command interpreter window run

rebaseall -v

That should be it.

Any other ideas why IDLE won't run?

Well, that's a few things to think about, anyway.

regards
Steve

 

[maxwell]

Thanks, guess I misunderstood--I thought "pythonw" _was_ IDLE. Now I
see what IDLE is, and I wasn't actually wanting to run that.

And as it turns out, my _real_ problem was that my path was making me
run the CygWin version of Python from the "DOS" command prompt--which
understandably dies with a "CPU" error.

Now I'm squared away--thanks for the tip!