[python-win32] I'm getting outfoxed by an ActiveX control...

[Trent Nelson]

Howdy folks,

I'm getting outfoxed by a pesky ActiveX control that keeps bombing out 
with a 'Catastrophic failure' as soon as I try and interact with it:

 >>> from win32com.client import *
 >>> d = Dispatch('TWS.TwsCtrl.1')
 >>> d
<win32com.gen_py.Tws ActiveX Control module._DTws instance at 0x43406520>
 >>> d.connect('', 7496, 0)
<snip>
pywintypes.com_error: (-2147418113, 'Catastrophic failure', None, None)

 >>> import tws
 >>> de = DispatchWithEvents('TWS.TwsCtrl.1', tws.TwsEvents)
 >>> de
<win32com.client.COMEventClass instance at 0x71273368>
 >>> de.connect('', 7496, 0)
<snip>
pywintypes.com_error: (-2147418113, 'Catastrophic failure', None, None)

I came across [1], which notes that 'Catastrophic failure' upon first 
invoking an ActiveX method is a good indication that the component needs 
an event loop.  It goes on to suggest some wx.activex-fu along the lines of:

 >>> import wx, wx.activex
 >>> app = wx.PySimpleApp()
 >>> f = wx.Frame(None, -1, "")
 >>> clsid = wx.activex.CLSID('TWS.TwsCtrl.1')
*** axw = wx.activex.ActiveXWindows(f, clsid)
 >>> wx.activex.GernerateAXModule(axw, 'Tws', '.', verbose=True)

Unfortunately, if I run that code, it causes python.exe to crash at the 
*** line above.  I've never tried to interface with an ActiveX module 
that requires an event-loop before, so I'm out of my COM-comfort zone.

FWIW, if you drop the OCX onto a VB form, it works fine.  However, 
trying to programmatically interact with the component with, say, 
VBScript or Perl's Win32::OLE yields the same 'Catastrophic failure' 
result I'm getting with Python.

Relevant files are available here:
	http://wind.teleri.net/~trent/tws.zip
		Shipped with the module:
			Tws_i.h
			Tws.idl
			Tws.ocx
			ComPropAccessor.h
		Files I've added:
			tws.py

The tws.py is simply the output of makepy, with an additional TwsEvents 
class that I added in order to try DispatchWithEvents().

Any assistance would be appreciated.

Regards,

	Trent.

[1]: http://www.wiredfool.com/2006/11/18/python-and-com-components/