Python nltk download and download_shell both freeze (hang) on punkt attempt

Question

Using NLTK 2.0.4. installed for EPD\'s Python-2.7.3 (not Canopy). on Ubuntu 12.10. In the terminal I type:

In [96]: nltk.download_shell()
NL         


        

Answer 1

I had the same problem and downloaded the necessary items manually from the following link:

http://nltk.org/nltk_data/

Not the desired solution, but will work until this is fixed.

UPDATE:

I was actually able to run nltk.download() to install cmudict. Maybe this issue only affects certain packages?