[Spambayes] Spambayes 1.04 will not start / Cannot connect to localhost

[Julian Brooks]

Firstly I should say I have previously used Spambayes very successfully 
with Outlook for over a year, thank you.  A recent change of email 
program to Thunderbird has prompted me to try the pop3 proxy server instead.

I have scoured Google searches for 24hours in an effort to find any 
answers to the problem I have been having, but to no avail.  Apologies 
if there is an answer that I have not found. I have also been through 
the Spambayes FAQ - which explains much but not for my problems. I have 
also looked through the Nabble, Python - Spambayes forums.

I am running WinXP SP2, Thunderbird 2.0.0.6, Thunderbayes 0.2.2 addin 
and Spambayes 1.04.  I am therefore using sb_service.exe and Spambayes 
Tray.  I have 2 ISPs setup connecting via ports 110 and 111 and 
Thunderbird set to retrieve the emails from localhost.  Initially after 
setting everything up everything seemed to work fine.  I rebooted the 
computer sometime later and then my problems started.  I have had great 
difficulty getting the sb_service to start when the computer reboots.  
It initially appears to start with the tray icon showing that Spambayes 
is running.  The icon then changes and Spambayes shows it is stopped.  
No manual attempts to restart either sb_service or the Spambayes Tray 
will do anything.  Trying to pickup email from Thunderbird results in 
"no connection to localhost" - which is not surprising as Spambayes is 
not running.  I also cannot access the Spambayes config, view 
information or read messages when the Spambayes is not running - also to 
be expected you say (I have included this as information to others who 
are having the same problems).

I have spent a couple of days trying different things in order to get 
this to work:
 - reinstall Spambayes
 - looking at log files
 - disabling Thunderbayes master password - still not sure if this is an 
issue or not

2 or 3 times Spambayes has started working again, have picked up email 
and thought I had solved the problem only to be faced with a sb_service 
that will not run when I reboot the computer.  If it seems vague as to 
what I have tried, nothing seems to be repeatable, so am not sure.  
Sorry, I do not have any log files to post now as everything has been 
overwritten with my successes - see below.

I eventually came across a reference to Spambayes 1.1a4 in the Python - 
Spambayes forum.  I found there was a windows install for this release 
on Sourceforge and decided to try it out.  I first of all got in a mess 
as I did not uninstall the 1.04 program correctly (perhaps there are 
instructions somewhere I missed) which meant that 1.1a4 was using the 
old sb_service.exe (I think?).  Anyway having deleted the sb_service 
finally another install of 1.1a4 has sorting everything out so far. Its 
still early days to know if my mail is being filtered correctly.  The 
only thing I have noticed is that Spambayes is reporting that the 
version is 1.1a3 and not 1.1a4.  I double checked my download which 
seems to be correct from Sourceforge, but I did notice that someone else 
noticed a similar problem all be it with the Outlook plugin for 1.1a4.

Lastly, I hope this email helps someone else.  I was going to post it 
directly on the Nabble forum, but so far I have not been sent my 
registration email.  I look forward to further releases of Spambayes.