[Spambayes] Error: can't connect to port 8880

[Tony Meyer]

> I use Thunderbird, and by following the instructions, I was 
> able to get the program installed, configure my mail client
> with appropriate filters, and start using the configuration/training
> interface pages to identify spam - it began working effectively
> very rapidly Then, I shut down the configuration interface and that 
> stopped my mail from coming in

"Save and Shutdown" on the web interface doesn't shutdown just the web
interface, it shuts down sb_server.  (If sb_server is running, then the web
interface is running).  Since sb_server wasn't running, the POP3 proxies
weren't running, so Thunderbird couldn't connect to them.

> When I tried to reopen the the interface, I just get failure 
> to connect to port 8880 messages

That's because sb_server was shut down, and so wasn't serving the web
interface.  If you restart sb_server, then both the web interface and the
POP3 proxies should work again.

Unless you want to stop sb_server running, you shouldn't ever need to click
the "Save and Shutdown" button.

[...]
> Another thing I'm wondering is, it wouldn't let me install 
> except from root - is that the correct behavior?

setup.py install copies files into your Python distribution - this is
probably what required the root access.  This is the simplest way to go
about it, but not the only way.  You can install to somewhere else (run
"python setup.py install --help" to get a description of the various options
available).  Alternatively, you can leave the unwrapped archive anywhere you
like and just ensure that the directory containing the "spambayes" directory
(the one with tokenizer.py in it) is included in your PYTHONPATH environment
variable.

> Also, there was a line in the instructions about:
>  "You'll also need to move aside the standard "email"
> library - go to your Python "Lib" directory and rename "email" to
> "email_old".
> This did NOT work unless I'm doing something completely 
> wrong. I found usr/lib/python/email and when I renamed it
> to email_old, the installation wouldn't go forward.

The instructions say:

"""
You also need version 2.4.3 or above of the Python "email" package.
If you're running Python 2.2.3 or above then you already have a good
version of the email package.

If not, you can download email version 2.5 from the email SIG at
<http://www.python.org/sigs/email-sig> and install it - unpack the
archive, cd to the email-2.5 directory and type "python setup.py
install".  This will install it into your Python site-packages
directory.  You'll also need to move aside the standard "email"
library - go to your Python "Lib" directory and rename "email" to
"email_old".
"""

Do you have Python 2.2.3 or above?  If so, then none of this applies (as it
says).  If you don't, then the best thing would be to simply install Python
2.4.1, but if that isn't an option, you should carry out the instructions in
the second paragraph - that isn't just renaming the old email package, but
also installing the new one.

=Tony.Meyer

-- 
Please always include the list (spambayes at python.org) in your replies
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