Skeinforge (or Python) install problem, Win XP

Hello:

I have been lurking here for about a year. My Mendel is complete and almost printing. Now I am

trying to learn Skeinforge.

However, I find myself unable to get skeinforge to run. I am running a Win XP Pro laptop (corporate

with firewalls, antivirus, etc.). I have tried to install Python 3.1, 2.7 and 2.6, and the last 3

versions of Skeinforge, to no avail. Python seems to run fine on all versions. IDLE does not seem

to run from command line, and shortcut does not point anywhere...

My big problem is I get the following message when I go to the c:\skeinforge\skeinforge_application

directory and type "python skeinforge.py":

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

this should never happen, getDisplayedDialogFromConstructor in settings could not open
<__main__.SkeinforgeRepository instance at 0x00D98EB8>
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\skeinforge\fabmetheus_utilities\settings.py", line 147, in

getDisplayedDialogFromConstructor
return RepositoryDialog( repository, Tkinter.Tk() )
File "C:\PYTHON27\LIB\LIB-TK\Tkinter.py", line 1685, in __init__
self.tk = _tkinter.create(screenName, baseName, className, interactive, wantobjects, useTk,

sync, use)
TclError: Can't find a usable init.tcl in the following directories:
{C:\Program Files\Tcl\Lib\tcl8.3} {C:/Program Files/Tcl/Lib/tcl8.5} C:/PYTHON27/lib/tcl8.5

C:/lib/tcl8.5 C:/lib/tcl8.5 C:/library C:/library C:/tcl8.5.2/library C:/tcl8.5.2/library



This probably means that Tcl wasn't installed properly.

Warning, displayedDialogFromConstructor in settings is none, so the window will not be displayed.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note that my path is:%SystemRoot%\system32;...........;C:\Python27;C:\Python27\tcl\tcl8.5

I added the tcl stuff at the end, but did not help.

My PythonPath is:C:\PYTHON27;C:\PYTHON27\DLLs;C:\PYTHON27\LIB;C:\PYTHON27\LIB\LIB-TK;C:\PYTHON27\tcl

My directory structure is shown in the attached picture. It seems that the Python installer is not putting

the tcl stuff where skeinforge expects it??

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

john

..... If it looks like this it should work

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/19/2011 09:40PM by Bruce.

Hi Bruce:

My directory structure matches what you show, except the top level is c:\skeinforge. I tried unzipping the skeinforge 39_reprap_python_beanshell files to a directory with the top level named as in your post. When double clicking, a DOS box appears for a few seconds and then disappears. Running from the command line and piping to a file gives the same error message I posted before.

sigh....

j

Start a DOS box ("cmd.exe") and type in the command "python skeinforge.py".
THEN you can see the error messages!

---

Bob Morrison
Wörth am Rhein, Germany
"Luke, use the source!"
BLOG - PHOTOS - Thingiverse

Hi Bob

Yes, it gives the same. I piped it to have it in a file to post.

thanks,

j

Shot in the dark. Try deleting your .skeinforge file

Hi Bruce:

I deleted the directory under "documents and settings". The result was the same.

j

Probably tcl isn't installed. I've had the same problem, installing python on windows can be a nightmare. I wish I could remember what the solution was, but I think I can tell you that the problem isn't skienforge, it's part of the python install. Specifically that tcl/tk isn't installed correctly (if I'm remembering correctly).

Try downloading an older version of the python all-in-one installer, which i think includes the tcl-tk stuff. Or has an installer that works differently. Or something.

Sorry, it's been awhile, and it wasn't with skienforge that I encountered this error anyway, it was trying to get pyBogged, a boggle game I'd written, working on a friends computer.

---

--
I'm building it with Baling Wire

SOLVED!!!!!!!

I tried loading Python 2.6 and Skeinforge (latest version 2-24-2011) on another XP Pro machine. That one worked fine. Also, I noted that there were no references to either program in the environment or user variables.

Then I uninstalled both from the problem machine. I edited the registry and deleted all references to python and skeinforge. I edited the environment variables to delete all references to Python and edited the user variables to delete references to tcl stuff. Then I installed the aforementioned versions, and IT WORKED. Two weeks of frustration are over, and I can move on to other ones....

many thanks,

j

Sweet Now on to the next nightmare, Skeinforge settings ><
Once you get on to it though, it's a pretty effective tool.

I'm currently having the same problem, or at least a very similar one.
I tried following the steps in your solution as best I could (I've never done anything with my registry or environment variables before).

I'm running Windows 7 32-bit.

I uninstalled everything and installed Python 2.6 and Skeinforge 40 (2-24-2011) and I still get the quick flash of the command window then it disappears.

I get the following error when run from DOS prompt:

C:\40_reprap_python_beanshell\skeinforge_application>skeinforge.py
this should never happen, getDisplayedDialogFromConstructor in settings could no
t open
<__main__.SkeinforgeRepository instance at 0x01D62C10>
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\40_reprap_python_beanshell\fabmetheus_utilities\settings.py", line 14
7, in getDisplayedDialogFromConstructor
    return RepositoryDialog( repository, Tkinter.Tk() )
  File "C:\40_reprap_python_beanshell\fabmetheus_utilities\settings.py", line 19
20, in __init__
    fileHelpMenuBar.completeMenu( self.close, repository, self.save, self )
  File "C:\40_reprap_python_beanshell\fabmetheus_utilities\settings.py", line 85
5, in completeMenu
    pluginFileNames = archive.getPluginFileNamesFromDirectoryPath(skeinforgePlug
insPath)
  File "C:\40_reprap_python_beanshell\fabmetheus_utilities\archive.py", line 216
, in getPluginFileNamesFromDirectoryPath
    return getFileNamesByFilePaths(getPythonFileNamesExceptInit(fileInDirectory)
)
  File "C:\40_reprap_python_beanshell\fabmetheus_utilities\archive.py", line 249
, in getPythonFileNamesExceptInit
    pythonFileNamesExceptInit = getFilesWithFileTypeWithoutWords('py', ['__init_
_.py'], fileInDirectory)
  File "C:\40_reprap_python_beanshell\fabmetheus_utilities\archive.py", line 150
, in getFilesWithFileTypeWithoutWords
    for filePath in getFilePaths(fileInDirectory):
  File "C:\40_reprap_python_beanshell\fabmetheus_utilities\archive.py", line 81,
 in getFilePaths
    return getFilePathsByDirectory(directoryName)
  File "C:\40_reprap_python_beanshell\fabmetheus_utilities\archive.py", line 86,
 in getFilePathsByDirectory
    directory = os.listdir(directoryName)
WindowsError: [Error 6] The handle is invalid: 'C:\\40_reprap_python_beanshell\\
skeinforge_application\\skeinforge_plugins/*.*'
Warning, displayedDialogFromConstructor in settings is none, so the window will
not be displayed.

Seems to have something to do with Fabmetheus_utilities...

Any ideas?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/19/2011 09:59AM by kurtis.

Do you have a multi-monitor system?

Is so disable the multi-monitor mode and start as a single monitor and see if it works

---

Bob Morrison
Wörth am Rhein, Germany
"Luke, use the source!"
BLOG - PHOTOS - Thingiverse

Nope, running off of a laptop with no monitor connected

The first line of the error mentions Tkinter. Perhaps this has something to do with it?

Tkinter is a default part of python.

You could check it by starting a command prompt, then typing:

python

when the python environment starts, type:

import tkinter

if nothing exciting happens, everything is fine. If it complains, something went wrong with your python install and you should try reinstalling.

However, looking at the error it looks like skeinforge is trying to get a list of all the files in the plug-ins directory so it can build the window and it has failed. Is the path displayed in the last line of the error the path where you have Skeinforge extracted?

JB

---

--
Check out my blog: AdventuresIn3-DPrinting

Running import tkinter, I get:

>>> import tkinter
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "", line 1, in 
ImportError: No module named tkinter

Seems wrong to me, however I just ran the same thing on my Windows XP where my Skeinforge works fine, and I got the same error, so I don't think that's the source of my problem.

Yes, the line at the end of the error message is where I have my Skeinforge files extracted to. I'm not sure why there are "\\" in it though. There are no spaces in the path as far as I can tell.

Sorry typo, try this:

import Tkinter

The double backslashes are required to escape the backslash so that if you really want to print 'Hello\neil' it comes out correctly and doesn't insert a carriage return '\n', so you put 'Hello\\neil' to show you really want a backslash.

JB

import Tkinter didn't do anything, which I assume means it's working.

Solution to my problem must be the same (or at least very similar" to the original problem that this thread is based on.
I think a more detailed description on how to make the necessary changes to my registry and user variables would help. I don't really want to go in and start changing things in my registry without knowing what I'm doing...

try this download: sfwin
It's a packed version, no need for python install and runs from anywhere.

Tom

---

regards,
Tom

Just wanted to say thanks for that link Tom - I've given up on Netfabb and Axon, so I'm hoping that Skeinforge isn't too impenetrable.

Cheers!

coanda

Sorry to be late to the party, but I wanted to post my fix to this that did not involve downloading additional software.

My TCL and TK environmental values, turned out to be pointed at an old installation of Python on my machine. The Python27 installer did not fix this problem, meaning that Pronterface would call an old version of TCL and TK. Change the variables, and you're good to go (if you don't know how to do this as i didn't - I've included it at the bottom).

To fix the problem, double check your set up by looking for TCL in your Python installation, and noting where the latest version of TCL and TK are. The TK and TCL libraries, if installed with Python, are located under PythonXX\tcl, where XX is your python version. In my case, TCL is at Python27\tcl\tcl8.5, and TK is at Python27\tcl\tk8.4. I installed Python directly under C:\, which seemed to be the default.

[if you're not a windows noob like me, this should be the end of your solution. I'm learning windows at the same time as RepRap stuff, however, so the solution, although relatively easy, was not intuitive. Open Control Panel > System > [tab]Advanced > [button] Environmental Variables. In the system variables pane, replace the values for TK and TCL with the appropriate values for your version of Python.]

Skeinforge settings for Pronterface pop right up after the update.

Hey just wanted to let you know your comment helped me get Skeinforge up and running. As of 9/1/2013, the latest version of Python, 3.3.2, is not compatible with the newest version of Skeinforge. I had to uninstall the newest version of Python and install v2.7.5. Now all is well. Thanks for the tip.