I'm working my way through The Programming Historian 2, a self-tutorial in coding for historians focusing on HTML and Python. I am attempting to complete the lesson Working with Files and Web Pages but am stuck on the Opening URLs with Python unit. I am running the following program:
# open-webpage.py
import urllib2
url = 'http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/print.jsp?div=t17800628-33'
response = urllib2.urlopen(url)
webContent = response.read()
print webContent[0:300]
Every time I run the program Komodo Edit 7 returns the following error message:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "open-webpage.py", line 7, in <module>
response = urllib2.urlopen(url)
File "C:\Python27\lib\urllib2.py", line 126, in urlopen
return _opener.open(url, data, timeout)
File "C:\Python27\lib\urllib2.py", line 400, in open
response = self._open(req, data)
File "C:\Python27\lib\urllib2.py", line 418, in _open
'_open', req)
File "C:\Python27\lib\urllib2.py", line 378, in _call_chain
result = func(*args)
File "C:\Python27\lib\urllib2.py", line 1207, in http_open
return self.do_open(httplib.HTTPConnection, req)
File "C:\Python27\lib\urllib2.py", line 1180, in do_open
r = h.getresponse(buffering=True)
File "C:\Python27\lib\httplib.py", line 1030, in getresponse
response.begin()
File "C:\Python27\lib\httplib.py", line 407, in begin
version, status, reason = self._read_status()
File "C:\Python27\lib\httplib.py", line 365, in _read_status
line = self.fp.readline()
File "C:\Python27\lib\socket.py", line 447, in readline
data = self._sock.recv(self._rbufsize)
socket.error: [Errno 10054] An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host
I have attempted the program with a number of different urls, always with the same result. The guys at Komodo think the problem is to do with my university's firewall, because I access the internet through my university's proxy. The tech people here told me to change my default browser from RockMelt (chromium) to IE, because only IE is fully supported. I did so with no change and they have no other suggestions.
Can anyone suggest an alternate explanation for the error or a way to address the firewall problem? Thanks.