Q:

Python error TypeError: must be string or buffer, not instance

i am trying to download some images which are listed in QListWidget i am passing the links to the urllib but its giving me TypeError: must be string or buffer, not instance this error.  I tried looking up here but couldn't find any solution here is my code.  Thanks 
    def downloadStuff(self):
    files = self.listWidget.selectedItems()
    for filename in files:
        filename = filename.text()
        filename = str(filename)
        print filename
        xfilename = filename.split('/')[-1]
        with open('D:/'+xfilename,'wb') as imageFile:
            print filename
            imageFile.write(urllib.urlopen(filename)).read()
        imageFile.close()

A:

It's hard to say for sure without seeing the stack trace, but I suspect this line:
imageFile.write(urllib.urlopen(filename)).read()

Should instead be:
imageFile.write(urllib.urlopen(filename).read())

Incidentally, you don't need the imageFile.close() line, because the with statement closes the file for you automatically.