This has been reported before (#6494, #7987) and closed as "You need to build Python with SSL support." However, this error is raised even if ssl support is included. The SSL check in xmlrpc.client for Python 3.1 is: if not hasattr(socket, "ssl") but ssl was removed from socket and into its own class for Py3k. So one workaround, provided ssl support is available: import socket if not hasattr(socket, 'ssl') socket.ssl = None import xmlrpc.client at which point everything works fine. The attached patch fixes the bug, checking for ssl support based on the existence of http.client.HTTPSConnection, which is similar to the check in Python 2.7.
This problem also occurs with our service at www.renderfarm.fi with Blender. I tested the included patch, and can confirm that it works. I'm very interested in the possibility of seeing this included in the official release ASAP!
Renderfarm.fi's python based "uploader" for Blender 2.5 (GPL licensed and a part of the main distribution of Blender) is still suffering from this bug. We're hopeful that this issue would be fixed in the next versions of Python. Thank you!
