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 with nltk 3.0.01b. I downloaded the "book" package and monitored the download from the task manager's network display while at the same time checking the size of the target folder (AppData\Roaming\nltk_data on my Windows 7 system). The network traffic ceased and the folder stopped growing at a size of 379 MB. But the Python shell was locked. The following was the last message displayed:

showing info http://nltk.github.com/nltk_data/

However, if you cancel out the Tk window that shows what download items are available, the nltk.download() command will terminate and the shell prompt will come back.