Why can't I get Python's urlopen() method to work?

Question

Why isn't this simple Python code working?

import urllib
file = urllib.urlopen('http://www.google.com')
print file.read()

This is the error that I get:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\workspace\GarchUpdate\src\Practice.py", line 26, in <module>
    file = urllib.urlopen('http://www.google.com')
  File "C:\Python26\lib\urllib.py", line 87, in urlopen
    return opener.open(url)
  File "C:\Python26\lib\urllib.py", line 206, in open
    return getattr(self, name)(url)
  File "C:\Python26\lib\urllib.py", line 345, in open_http
    h.endheaders()
  File "C:\Python26\lib\httplib.py", line 892, in endheaders
    self._send_output()
  File "C:\Python26\lib\httplib.py", line 764, in _send_output
    self.send(msg)
  File "C:\Python26\lib\httplib.py", line 723, in send
    self.connect()
  File "C:\Python26\lib\httplib.py", line 704, in connect
    self.timeout)
  File "C:\Python26\lib\socket.py", line 514, in create_connection
    raise error, msg
IOError: [Errno socket error] [Errno 10060] A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time, or established connection failed because connected host has failed to respond

I've tried it with several different pages but I can never get the urlopen method to execute correctly.

Answer 1

Your code is not the problem here.

Do you have any Proxy settings in your IE?

This says the python documentation for urllib.urlopen:
"""
In a Windows environment, if no proxy environment variables are set,
proxy settings are obtained from the registry's Internet Settings
section.
"""

Answer 2

If you have wireshark, check what's being sent out and if there is anything coming back at all. It will help you debug the problem if you can see the GET request being sent.

Also i remember having similar problem like this once, what i did was flush my dns cache

(ipconfig /flushdns) and restarted. It fixed my problem. It doesn't hurt to try i guess.