Smart not working

I tried to get smart working (the update tool). First off, it wants to update almost every package on the system, which seems like overkill to me. But whenever I try to update a package, I get a list of Python errors. Which end in this: ... ... File "/usr/lib/python2.3/codecs.py", line 343, in __getattr__ return getattr(self.stream, name) AttributeError: 'file' object has no attribute 'bytebuffer' And that is it. :-( Google gives me no joy in tracking this down. Others have had the problem, but no-one has a solution. Anyone here have any clues??? SuSE 9.2, standard install with YOU/apt updates etc... Python 2.3.4 TIA