hi not a direct answer to your question, but fixes the issue. full details of a work-around at this link: http://www.sephiroth.it/phpBB/showthread.php?t=9244 cheers Nick -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/attachments/20071204/341075b7/attachment.html>