TCP Connections / Talking to EventGhost

[Gintaras]

Now as part of the connection, I need to receive a cookie, hash it and send it back. Should I be trying to do that as part of "Connect"?

No. Your code is correct, I don't know why it hangs.

Alternatively to all of this, is there a reliable way to send events to EventGhost, or barring that to XBMC?

I would try Directory Watcher plugin. QM then can create or rename or update a file, and it would generate event.
Or using command line -e, but it is slow.

I'm not familiar with XBMC.