Oh, this is an interesting lead.... I feel pretty certain the request isn't coming from our Python after stepping-thru the code.

The other suggestions -- using a SSL proxy -- has been my plan of attack.

If it takes several seconds to set up a test, I would give this a try:

  - start a test from the IDE,
  - wait a second or so,
  - manually pause all threads,
  - look at the stacks of the threads.

Might take two or three attempts, but likely should learn you a lot. Alternatively, use a real profiler to find the call(s) that take lots of time.

Try an strace?

    strace -e trace=network ./run_my_unit_tests

Also -f so it follows forking (I always forget that the first time, swear, and have to re-run strace with it)

What OS are you running? It's pretty straightforward to get going on OSX in my experience.

mocking/replacing the http/urllibs? save a traceback when a connection is made?

Is the URL class in Java special, versus just a Uri structure?. Because relying on DNS for equivalency sounds totally wrong for many cases. At least such a compare should have a special name to indicate resolution will be attempted.

The URL class in Java is special, as in especially broken. It's very old code that probably wasn't a good idea even back then, and it's never been changed for backwards compat reasons.

Use java.net.Uri, or e.g. the equivalent from Jersey or whatever your local framework/HTTP client/... brings with it.

There is a couple of other places where this fails pretty hard. If you compare to URL's on the same shared host, they will be considered equal and equality of URI's can change as the network goes up and down. I would imagine at some point (if it hasn't already) become deprecated.

Joshua Bloch used this as an example in one of the brilliant Java Puzzler video series with the net advise of don't depend on non-local state for equality.

Thats a good idea. Java and how it handles XML deserve a special place in hell, the motions to install a local XSD resolver are... not intuitive.