SABnzbd Forums

Hello,
I'm still using windows 7 for as long as I can.
For SABnzbd I had to update many times with "Windows Portable (32bit and legacy)", and so far it worked fine.
But with the last update 3.7.1 it can't be launched. I have an error message.

It seems my screenshot doesn want to show... Nothing to help...
It says
Unhandled exception in script
Fail to execute script 'pyi_rth_win32comgenpy' due to unhandledexception: DLL load failed while importing Win32api: La procedure spécifiée est introuvabe (French)

I am not able to reproduce this.
I downloaded a Windows 7 SP1 VM from Microsoft (they offer those) and right away the 32bit version runs: https://imgur.com/a/lCmXtbH
Not sure what updates they have installed, but seems not super recent.
Only extra packages I can see is .NET Framework 4.7.1, besides that it seems a completely clean machine.

So I am unable to help..

Thanks for trying Safihre !

I forgot to say I'm running Windows 7 64 bits... (Only I use the 32 bits version of SABnzbd for legacy)
I don't know if it changes something?
I think the SP1 VM you took should be the same as mine. Only yours is "fresh" and mine is an old constantly updated one.
If it can help, here is the url of my full screenshot : https://freeimage.host/i/HI8ziCB
(it doesn't show in img mode)

I guess I have to update to NZBGet...

Only thing that could maybe still be the case is that your virusscanner is maybe blocking some of the Dll's that SABnzbd needs.

And maybe it's time to update your OS to a supported one

Well... I won't update to win 10 on this Computer. I did on others. And no way to go to Win11 with my equipment.
Win7 ultimate is still supported. Just abandonned by many software, like SABnzbd...
My virus Scanner is Microsoft SE...
I have no problem to switch back to 3.7.0... No DLL missing. No problem at all.
But I'm annoyed to see the blue reminder to upgrade to 3.7.1 when I can't!

safihre: I've got the same problem as 'lou ping' with Windows 10 32 bit.

When I did the normal upgrade by downloading the zip, unzipping, shutting down SABnzbd, and copying the files over to the existing Program Files directory, I get the same exact error that lou ping did. (failed to execute script 'pyi_rth_win32comgenpy' due to unhandled exception: dll load failed while importing win32api)

When I copied the 3.7.0 files to the Program Files directory, SABnzbd worked again.

I looked up the error on the web, and it seems to be a somewhat common error when there are problems with the Python installation. The solutions given didn't make sense to me because I don't use Python, so I couldn't see a clear solution. I did compare the two zip files, and all the files in the 3.7.0 zip are present in the 3.7.1 zip. The folders for 9 of the distributions are named differently due to the version upgrades. Example: pytz-2022.5.dist-info vs pytz-2022.6.dist-info folders. Maybe there is a pointer to an incorrect directory for Win32api?

As has lou ping, I've been doing the "copy all the files in the zip over" procedure for a number of years since the 32-bit installer was discontinued and never had a single problem. This is the first.

So there does seem to be some issue with the 3.7.1 update in how the Python-supporting files are built.

Please let us know if you see a fix.

Thank you!

Thanks eriji!
I hope someone of good will look into the problem...

Ah maybe the problem is the 32bit part.. Since my test VM was 64bit.
@lou ping: How many bit is your Windows 7? 32 or 64?

@safihre: as said before

lou ping wrote: ↑December 27th, 2022, 11:16 pm ...
I forgot to say I'm running Windows 7 64 bits... (Only I use the 32 bits version of SABnzbd for legacy)
I don't know if it changes something?
I think the SP1 VM you took should be the same as mine. Only yours is "fresh" and mine is an old constantly updated one.
...

Exact same issue. But with a Win 10 32bit VM. Also started when going from 3.7.0 to 3.7.1 32 bit legacy install. Reverting to 3.7.0 does away with the error again.
P.S.: Trying to paste the complete traceback but getting a message "new users are not allowed to post links". So I had to omit the first few lines of the traceback.

Just want to bring this back to the top. I'm still on 3.7.0 and am unable to update to 3.7.1 on my Windows 10 32 bit VM due to the above issue. Thanks!

Uninstall SABnzbd and then search your entire computer for pywintypes*.dll and pythoncom*.dll. If you find any then delete them if you can. To post the error, put spaces around the dots.

Puzzled wrote: ↑February 8th, 2023, 3:20 pm Uninstall SABnzbd and then search your entire computer for pywintypes*.dll and pythoncom*.dll. If you find any then delete them if you can. To post the error, put spaces around the dots.

Nice! That was it -- there was a pywintypes and a pythoncom dll file in the SABnzbd directory. Removing them made 3.7.2 work for me. Reason for those legacy files being there was that I unpacked each new version over the old one, never cleaning up any legacy files. And since the 32 bit version doesn't have an installer anymore, it's basically all manual now.

I appreciate you pointing me in the right direction!

Ohhh yes.. You can't do that indeed (unpack over old directory)!