On another computer with nose 0.11-dev I got a slightly different behaviour on this bug. The second Failure on __del__ methods only occured when printing something in ipy_user_conf.py Python 2.4 incompatibilty C:\python\external\ipython\IPython\tests>python ..\..\scripts\iptest SS...........SSSSSSSSSSS.S...S..................E......SSS ====================================================================== ERROR: Failure: SyntaxError ('yield' not allowed in a 'try' block with a 'finally' clause (test_ipli b.py, line 64)) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Traceback (most recent call last): File "C:\Python24\lib\site-packages\nose-0.11.0.dev_r0-py2.4.egg\nose\loader.py", line 363, in loa dTestsFromName module = self.importer.importFromPath( File "C:\Python24\lib\site-packages\nose-0.11.0.dev_r0-py2.4.egg\nose\importer.py", line 39, in im portFromPath return self.importFromDir(dir_path, fqname) File "C:\Python24\lib\site-packages\nose-0.11.0.dev_r0-py2.4.egg\nose\importer.py", line 84, in im portFromDir mod = load_module(part_fqname, fh, filename, desc) File "c:\python\external\ipython\IPython\tests\test_iplib.py", line 64 yield user_setup, (tmpdir,''), kw SyntaxError: 'yield' not allowed in a 'try' block with a 'finally' clause ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Ran 55 tests in 4.189s FAILED (SKIP=18, errors=1) Traceback when printing something in ipy_user_conf C:\python\external\ipython\IPython\tests>python ..\..\scripts\iptest printed in ipy_user_conf SS...........SSSSSSSSSSS.S...S..................E.F....SSS ====================================================================== ERROR: Failure: SyntaxError ('yield' not allowed in a 'try' block with a 'finally' clause (test_ipli b.py, line 64)) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Traceback (most recent call last): File "C:\Python24\lib\site-packages\nose-0.11.0.dev_r0-py2.4.egg\nose\loader.py", line 363, in loa dTestsFromName module = self.importer.importFromPath( File "C:\Python24\lib\site-packages\nose-0.11.0.dev_r0-py2.4.egg\nose\importer.py", line 39, in im portFromPath return self.importFromDir(dir_path, fqname) File "C:\Python24\lib\site-packages\nose-0.11.0.dev_r0-py2.4.egg\nose\importer.py", line 84, in im portFromDir mod = load_module(part_fqname, fh, filename, desc) File "c:\python\external\ipython\IPython\tests\test_iplib.py", line 64 yield user_setup, (tmpdir,''), kw SyntaxError: 'yield' not allowed in a 'try' block with a 'finally' clause ====================================================================== FAIL: Test that object's __del__ methods are called on exit. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Traceback (most recent call last): File "C:\Python24\lib\site-packages\nose-0.11.0.dev_r0-py2.4.egg\nose\case.py", line 182, in runTe st self.test(*self.arg) File "c:\python\external\ipython\IPython\tests\test_magic.py", line 86, in test_obj_del nt.assert_equals(out,'obj_del.py: object A deleted') AssertionError: 'printed in ipy_user_conf\nobj_del.py: object A deleted' != 'obj_del.py: object A de leted' >> >> raise self.failureException, \ (None or '%r != %r' % ('printed in ipy_user_conf\nobj_del.py: object A deleted', 'obj_del. py: object A deleted')) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Ran 55 tests in 4.236s FAILED (SKIP=18, errors=1, failures=1)