title: Python urllib and firewall: "connection was forcibly closed"
body: <p>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:</p>
  
  <pre><code># 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]
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Every time I run the program Komodo Edit 7 returns the following error message:</p>
  
  <pre><code>Traceback (most recent call last):  
    File "open-webpage.py", line 7, in &lt;module&gt;  
      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
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>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.</p>
  
  <p>Can anyone suggest an alternate explanation for the error or a way to address the firewall problem? Thanks.</p>