artsnova has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hi All,

According to the Active State PPM FAQ, all I need to do is intall Perl and PPM will work. Howver, when issuing any one of several commands in PPM version 3.1 I get the following error message:

Error 501: Method Not Implemented
For example,
search whatever fails,
install whatever fails,
profile whatever fails,
describe whatever fails.

where whatever is the parameter associated with that particular command.
I am on XP and have set the necessary environment variables for internet access as called for in the FAQ. Google turned up nothing relevant and I didn't find anything in the bug database.

Suggestions?
Thanks.
Jim Plaxco
http://www.marsartgallery.com
  • Comment on PPM Commands Fail with Method Not Implemented Error

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Re: PPM Commands Fail with Method Not Implemented Error
by Adrade (Pilgrim) on Jul 11, 2005 at 20:33 UTC
    This sounds immediately to me like you're behind a proxy and it's the thing actually sending you this message. However it is, PPM seems to be trying to communicate with its server using a HTTP method that isn't permitted, which is strange -or- your proxy is transforming somehow the request into one that confuses the PPM server, which seems probably more likely, especially if its communicating over what looks like HTTP, but what is actually a PPM-specific protocol.

    Make sure you've gone through these instructions, but from your comment above, it seems like you may already have.

    Otherwise, ActiveState's remedy, unfortunately, goes like this.
      NOTE: If none of the changes in this document work for you, you may download individual packages from here ActivePerl 801 and later or here ActivePerl 613 and later or here ActivePerl 522 and earlier and install them according to the directions in the README file contained within the ZIP file. If you want, you can also keep a local repository, with several .ppd files in a permanent repository directory, and their .tar.gz files in an x86 directory beneath that.
    Hope this helps - good luck,
      -Adam

    P.S. nmake lives here, should you need it.

    Update: Also - for kicks, search on google for a ppd file for a module you'd like to install - try something simple first, something like this: ppm install http://ppm.gingerall.cz/RDF-Core.ppd - I'm curious to see what this results in... I can't say whether ppm uses HTTP to search its own database, but it would seemingly have to do so to pull this ppd file.

    --
    By a scallop's forelocks!

[reply]
[d/l]
      Hi Adam,

      Thanks for taking the time to help me out on this.

      Yes I am behind a firewall and had set the environment variable per the instructions in the PPM FAQ.

      Throwing up my hands in frustration, I dumped Perl 5.whatever that I had installed from some months ago (yes I'm relatively new to Perl) and just installed the latest 5.8.7. build. I have not yet tried everything but the search command now seems to work. Go figure.

      Thanks for your help and the nmake link. Hopefully I will be able to use PPM to install modules.

      Best Regards, Jim
      http://www.marsartgallery.com
[reply]
        Hello,
        On further testing it appears that the problem does indeed lie with the proxy server. It seems that the message "Method Not Implemented" is the server's way of saying "Huh?" Apparently having an environment variable that tells PPM there is a firewall is only half the battle. Looks like using PPM is ruled out as a way of installing modules.

        Jim
[reply]
Re: PPM Commands Fail with Method Not Implemented Error
by gwhite (Friar) on Jul 12, 2005 at 12:10 UTC

    Double check your path and make sure that c:\perl and c:\perl\bin (or wherever you installed it) is in the path. Is it possible you installed it as administrator, and are now using it as a different user?

    g_White
[reply]
      Hi g_White, Yes, the paths are set correctly. Thanks. Jim
[reply]

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