Raspberry Pi Forums

Have been working through book with son, started to use Python through IDLE3, done a couple of projects, come back to open again and get following message:

IDLE's sub process didn't make connection. Either Idle can't start a sub process or personal firewall software is blocking the connection.

Not aware of anything having been changed since we were using it before - can anyone help?!?!

It seems to be a problem that pops up regularly.
One of the suggestions is that you have created a .py file with a name that's also used by python (string.py, random.py, ...). Python / IDLE will use these instead of the 'official' ones, causing all sorts of problems.

If that's the case renaming them should solve the problem. Also make sure that there are no .pyc files with these names left (you can delete these).
See e.g. http://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments ... ont_start/

HTH

Thanks! Will give that a go. The boy is desperate to get onto the next chapter!

Help again! It didn't work. Deleted the pc files, couldn't see any pcy files but same issue persists....any other thoughts??

Is it safe to assume that you have tried rebooting the RPi?

How are you trying to start IDLE3 - by clicking on the icon on the GUI desktop, or by typing IDLE3 at a shell prompt (eg. LXTerminal)? [Both should work, but the latter will be more susceptible to problems caused by unwanted files left around in your working directory.]

Note that previous advice was about deleting .py and .pyc files - you wrote .pc and .pcy - these alternative file extensions are not relevant to your problem and these little details matter...

Hi, thanks, yes have tried rebooting and starting from desktop and start menu/programs. File extensions just misquotes in the typing.

Any other thoughts, should I just reformat and reload sd card and start again?

Dwill112 wrote:Any other thoughts, should I just reformat and reload sd card and start again?

You can do that by holding the [SHIFT] key while you reboot and using the NOOBS recovery system to re-install Raspbian. YOU WILL LOSE EVERYTHING YOU'VE DONE SO FAR (unless you back things up to a USB stick (or some other place)).

The only downside is that if you've not determined the cause of the error then in a week's time you'll could back to here reporting the same problem.

Just rebooted again and this time it worked?!?!!!

Thanks for all the advice, much appreciated (by someone who has less aptitude for this than the 8 year old he's trying to teach!!)