IRCBot won't join a channel

Question

Hi, I'm trying to build a very simple irc bot for now but it seems like my bot won't join the channel. Can someone point out what's wrong with the following code:

from twisted.internet import reactor, protocol
from twisted.words.protocols import irc

class IRCProtocol(irc.IRCClient):
    nickname = "botnick"

    def connectionMade(self):
        print 'connectionMade!'

    def signedOn(self):
        print 'Signed On to server'
        self.join(self.factory.channels)
        print 'Joined channel'
        self.say(self.factory.channels, "hello", 1024)


class IRCFactory(protocol.ClientFactory):
    protocol = IRCProtocol
    channels = "#testingircbot"

    def clientConnectionFailed(self, connector, reason):
        print "Connection failed because of %s" % reason
        reactor.stop()

    def clientConnectionLost(self, connector, reason):
        print "Connection lost: %s" % reason
        connector.connect()

if __name__ == "__main__":
    host, port = "irc.freenode.net", 6667
    fact = IRCFactory()
    reactor.connectTCP(host, port, fact)
    reactor.run()

This is the output when I run the script:

connectionMade!
Connection lost: [Failure instance: Traceback (failure with no frames): <class 'twisted.internet.error.ConnectionDone'>: Connection was closed cleanly.
]
connectionMade!
Connection lost: [Failure instance: Traceback (failure with no frames): <class 'twisted.internet.error.ConnectionDone'>: Connection was closed cleanly.
]
connectionMade!
Connection lost: [Failure instance: Traceback (failure with no frames): <class 'twisted.internet.error.ConnectionDone'>: Connection was closed cleanly.
]

Answer 1

Try enabling logging. One of your methods is probably raising an exception. The exception will be logged, but without logging enabled you'll never see it:

from sys import stdout
from twisted.python.log import startLogging
startLogging(stdout)

Answer 2

One of the problems with your code is that you are overriding connectionMade without calling the IRCClient implementation. IRCClient.connectionMade performs several important tasks, such as "registering" with the server (providing a nickname etc.) which is necessary before the server will accept any further commands. In fact, signedOn will never be called under these circumstances; the server is probably waiting for your bot to register, and then disconnecting it after a configured timeout when the registration never occurs.

(Note that the "registration" I refer to above is not NickServ-style registration; this refers to the process of sending USER and NICK commands upon connection to the IRC server.(

Also, your code calls self.join() to join a channel, and then immediately attempts to send a message to that channel. While this may work, it is not guaranteed to do so; instead, you should override joined in order to have your code run once the bot has actually joined the channel. You can then send your "hello" message (or do something else).