IDLE has suddenly become FAWLTY - so should I be hitting it with a big stick, or what?

[Terry Reedy]

On 8/26/2014 2:01 PM, Twirlip2 wrote:
> I've been using IDLE with Python 3.4.0 on Windows XP (SP3),
...

Does all non-Python stuff seem to be working?

> For a few days, I'd been frequently running a second instance of
> IDLE, to test a new version of the same script.  Today, having closed
> this instance, I tried to open one again, but I briefly saw an error
> message about not being able to create a thread, or something like
> that.

In Command Prompt, 'python -m idlelib' should run Idle and display 
(without disappearing) any available error messages.

Idle imports tkinter which imports threading. If that fails, Idle never 
visibly starts.  If the imports succeed, and Idle starts, but cannot 
connect to a subprocess, it displays a message in Shell. (I have 
occasionally seen this, but close Idle and retry always works.)  Your 
description suggests the former.

Does 'python' itself start. If so, and you get interactive prompt, does 
'import threading' work?  Ditto 'import tkinter'?  If so, does 
'tkinter.Tk()' bring up an empty tk window?

Back at interactive prompt, what happens with 'python -m test'?  There 
are a couple of modules that may sometimes fail, but the rest should not.

> 3. Installed 3.4.1 (over 3.4.0). It made no difference to the
> problem. (I also had to do a hard reboot of the system, after it had
> completely ground to a halt when I tried to reboot in the normal
> way.)

Upgrading on top of broken Python may not work. If the tests above fail, 
re-install after un-installing.  Un-installing will leave /python34 but 
only with things you added (or separately installed). You may need to 
're-install' 3.4.0 to un-install.

-- 
Terry Jan Reedy