Still can't figure out what the problem is. I have seen and read everything I can find on error downloading with pywikipedia and the API. I used Autowiki Browser to check connections and I can connect, edit, delete, etc.
I went back through the log files and the bot was accessing this particular wiki no problems as of 3 weeks ago. I have changed nothing on the wiki at all as far as extensions or additional files and no one else has access to the root to do so either. It can't be an error with pywikipedia because my other wiki works just fine. So one would think API on the wiki that is failing to download data. However, Autowiki Browser works just fine so I don't think that is the problem.
Could it be in the config file(family) of the wiki? But that still wouldn't explain why it was connecting just fine 3 weeks ago and suddenly stopped.
Tom