screen-scraper is telling me that it can't bind to certain ports. How do I fix this?

This error is caused by two possible scenarios.

Cause: Port Blocked. In order for screen-scraper to function properly it will need to open a series of local ports on your computer. There are occasions when these ports may be blocked by other software running on your machine, such as firewalls. If screen-scraper is telling you it can't bind to specific ports, you'll either need to free those particular ports up on your machine, or select different ports for screen-scraper to use. To free up the ports you may need to configure a firewall so that it allows for the ports to be bound. You may also need to quit another application that's using the same port (which could even be another instance of screen-scraper running on the same machine). If you'd like to configure screen-scraper to use different ports, see this FAQ.

Cause: Crash. You might also get this error message if the screen-scraper workbench or server crashed, but the database process remains alive. If after the port number in the message it shows "(for the database)", this may be the cause. To remedy this, you'll need to kill the database process manually, then start screen-scraper again. The process to kill will be called "java" on Linux and Mac OS X. For Windows there are a few processes that you may need to end: "java.exe", "screen-scraper.exe", and "server.exe".

If you're running Linux, you likely already know how to kill a process. To kill a process in Windows open the "Windows Task Manager" (briefly hold down Ctrl-Shift-Escape), click on the "Processes" tab, click "Show processes from all users", then end process for any "java.exe", "screen-scraper.exe", and "server.exe" processes you know you don't need.

Cause: screen-scraper Already Open. If screen-scraper is already running you might get this message. For example, if you're running the screen-scraper workbench, then start up the screen-scraper server, you'll get this message. Make sure you're running only either the workbench or the server or the command line interface.