hashlib suddenly broken

[Larry Martell]

On Thu, Sep 18, 2014 at 11:00 PM, Steven D'Aprano
<steve+comp.lang.python at pearwood.info> wrote:
> Ned Deily wrote:
>
>> In article
>> <CACwCsY4qQ1tYStHukSooeftGe=J-ug2LR8sz6JR0qP58yKKPuQ at mail.gmail.com>,
>>  Larry Martell <larry.martell at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Do you think I should install this update? Perhaps that would restore
>>> whatever is missing.
>>
>> Yes. You should install the update in any case and it's unlikely to make
>> the hashlib situation worse :=)
>
> However, it is likely to make it impossible to diagnose the problem and stop
> it from happening again.
>
> It's not normal behaviour to have functionality just disappear overnight
> like this. If Larry is telling the truth that there were no updates
> running, *how did the sha-1 library disappear*?
>
> Larry, I recommend that you try Christian's suggestions before upgrading:
>
>   $ echo -n '' | openssl dgst -sha1 -hex
>   (stdin)= da39a3ee5e6b4b0d3255bfef95601890afd80709
>
>   $ openssl version
>   OpenSSL 1.0.1f 6 Jan 2014

I download the update and rebooted to install it, and my machine would
not reboot. It was just spinning and spinning. I powered it down and
rebooted it and it said "There are updates to install. Do you want
install them or just reboot without installing them?" I chose the
latter. It rebooted and now hashlib is working again. That made me
think the updates were in fact installed, but when I run the software
update utility it says the updates have not been installed. It's all
very weird. But it's working again. Thanks everyone for the help!!