PyInstaller win32ctypes.pywin32.pywintypes.error: (2, 'LoadLibraryExW', 'The system cannot find the file specified.') - anaconda

Question

While using PyInstaller (dev version 4.0.dev0+8196c57ab), produced an OSError: [WinError 2] 'The system cannot find the file specified.'
Python version: 3.7
GUI: PySide2 5.13.0
Other packages: lxml, BeautifulSoup, Matplotlib (with dependencies like numpy), Pandas, pypiwin32, reportlab, Theano
Anaconda 3, Windows
Compiled with PyInstaller --onedir
What I've tried:
Tried downgrading PyInstaller to 2.1 as suggested here: https://github.com/pyinstaller/pyinstaller/issues/3916 but doesn't work as Python 3 is not supported
Was originally on PyInstaller 3.5, upgraded to dev version as suggested under some of the issues on PyInstaller github
Tried including --exclude-module=.git
import PyInstaller.__main__
if __name__ == '__main__':
PyInstaller.__main__.run([
'--name=%s' % 'Dummy App',
'--onedir',
'--nowindowed',
r'--workpath=C:\Users\User1\Desktop\build7',
r'--distpath=C:\Users\User1\Desktop\dist7',
'--hidden-import=theano.tensor.shared_randomstreams',
'--hidden-import=pandas._libs.tslibs.timedeltas',
'--clean',
'--add-data={0};.'.format('redacted.xml'),
'--add-data={0};{0}'.format('redacted_folder'),
'--add-data={0};.'.format('redacted.pdf'),
'--exclude-module={0}'.format('.git'),
'--log-level=WARN',
'MainWindow.py'
])
Full stacktrace:
79702 DEBUG: Analyzing .git\objects\78\e83411cea88cd038acb12c005a984fc0d6d423
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\Users\User1\Anaconda3\envs\ids_gui\lib\site-packages\win32ctypes\pywin32\pywintypes.py", line 35, in pywin32error
yield
File "C:\Users\User1\Anaconda3\envs\ids_gui\lib\site-packages\win32ctypes\pywin32\win32api.py", line 43, in LoadLibraryEx
return _dll._LoadLibraryEx(fileName, 0, flags)
File "C:\Users\User1\Anaconda3\envs\ids_gui\lib\site-packages\win32ctypes\core\ctypes\_util.py", line 42, in check_null
raise make_error(function, function_name)
OSError: [WinError 2] The system cannot find the file specified.
During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:/Users/User1/Dropbox/GitHub_Repos/DiabetesReportGenerator_v2/pyinstaller_freeze.py", line 37, in <module>
'MainWindow.py'
File "C:\Users\User1\Anaconda3\envs\ids_gui\lib\site-packages\PyInstaller\__main__.py", line 112, in run
run_build(pyi_config, spec_file, **vars(args))
File "C:\Users\User1\Anaconda3\envs\ids_gui\lib\site-packages\PyInstaller\__main__.py", line 63, in run_build
PyInstaller.building.build_main.main(pyi_config, spec_file, **kwargs)
File "C:\Users\User1\Anaconda3\envs\ids_gui\lib\site-packages\PyInstaller\building\build_main.py", line 732, in main
build(specfile, kw.get('distpath'), kw.get('workpath'), kw.get('clean_build'))
File "C:\Users\User1\Anaconda3\envs\ids_gui\lib\site-packages\PyInstaller\building\build_main.py", line 679, in build
exec(code, spec_namespace)
File "C:\Users\User1\Dropbox\GitHub_Repos\DiabetesReportGenerator_v2\Risk Calculator.spec", line 17, in <module>
noarchive=False)
File "C:\Users\User1\Anaconda3\envs\ids_gui\lib\site-packages\PyInstaller\building\build_main.py", line 242, in __init__
self.__postinit__()
File "C:\Users\User1\Anaconda3\envs\ids_gui\lib\site-packages\PyInstaller\building\datastruct.py", line 158, in __postinit__
self.assemble()
File "C:\Users\User1\Anaconda3\envs\ids_gui\lib\site-packages\PyInstaller\building\build_main.py", line 468, in assemble
redirects=self.binding_redirects))
File "C:\Users\User1\Anaconda3\envs\ids_gui\lib\site-packages\PyInstaller\depend\bindepend.py", line 226, in Dependencies
for ftocnm, fn in getAssemblyFiles(pth, manifest, redirects):
File "C:\Users\User1\Anaconda3\envs\ids_gui\lib\site-packages\PyInstaller\depend\bindepend.py", line 402, in getAssemblyFiles
for assembly in getAssemblies(pth):
File "C:\Users\User1\Anaconda3\envs\ids_gui\lib\site-packages\PyInstaller\depend\bindepend.py", line 353, in getAssemblies
res = GetManifestResources(pth)
File "C:\Users\User1\Anaconda3\envs\ids_gui\lib\site-packages\PyInstaller\utils\win32\winmanifest.py", line 1005, in GetManifestResources
return winresource.GetResources(filename, [RT_MANIFEST], names, languages)
File "C:\Users\User1\Anaconda3\envs\ids_gui\lib\site-packages\PyInstaller\utils\win32\winresource.py", line 168, in GetResources
hsrc = win32api.LoadLibraryEx(filename, 0, LOAD_LIBRARY_AS_DATAFILE)
File "C:\Users\User1\Anaconda3\envs\ids_gui\lib\site-packages\win32ctypes\pywin32\win32api.py", line 43, in LoadLibraryEx
return _dll._LoadLibraryEx(fileName, 0, flags)
File "C:\Users\User1\Anaconda3\envs\ids_gui\lib\contextlib.py", line 130, in __exit__
self.gen.throw(type, value, traceback)
File "C:\Users\User1\Anaconda3\envs\ids_gui\lib\site-packages\win32ctypes\pywin32\pywintypes.py", line 37, in pywin32error
raise error(exception.winerror, exception.function, exception.strerror)
win32ctypes.pywin32.pywintypes.error: (2, 'LoadLibraryExW', 'The system cannot find the file specified.')
P.S. Compilation and the exe functioned perfectly with virtualenv environment created from Anaconda environment earlier (without need for --exclude-module=.git), but was too bloated with packages because the virtualenv environment is still considered to be part of the conda environment. So I used a new conda environment, and this error appeared
I've gotten it to work by creating another virtualenv environment in this new conda environment, but that is a very roundabout way. Is there any workaround?

Answer 1

For me, PyInstaller seems to search through .git folder and redacted_folder unnecessarily
I solved this problem by:
MOVING the folder(s) out of the directory before freezing
Additionally, if the folder is required for the frozen app to run (e.g. as a data folder), I would also either:
Comment / remove the corresponding part for --add-data and manually copy the folder over, or
Change the path for --add-data e.g. if you moved redacted_folder to your Desktop, you can change to '--add-data=C:/Users/User1/Desktop/redacted_folder'
You'll still need .git and redacted_folder back in the original directory to use Git and run your code without freezing
For example, I had trouble with .git and redacted_folder. The frozen executable needed redacted_folder to run parts of the code.
What I did was:
Move .git and redacted_folder to a separate directory
Then, I commented out the line to add data for redacted_folder:
import PyInstaller.__main__
if __name__ == '__main__':
PyInstaller.__main__.run([
'--name=%s' % 'Dummy App',
'--onedir',
'--nowindowed',
r'--workpath=C:\Users\User1\Desktop\build7',
r'--distpath=C:\Users\User1\Desktop\dist7',
'--hidden-import=theano.tensor.shared_randomstreams',
'--hidden-import=pandas._libs.tslibs.timedeltas',
'--clean',
'--add-data={0};.'.format('redacted.xml'),
# Remove `redacted_folder` and comment out the following line
# '--add-data={0};{0}'.format('redacted_folder'),
'--add-data={0};.'.format('redacted.pdf'),
'--exclude-module={0}'.format('.git'),
'--log-level=WARN',
'MainWindow.py'
])
After freezing, I copied redacted_folder over to the appropriate location relative to the frozen executable in distpath

Answer 2

This was fixed. Update PyInstaller.

Answer 3

I installed pyinstaller in a new conda environment using pip, however pywin32 did not get installed by default (eventhough documentation mentioned it would). Installing it fixed the error for me.

Answer 4

I had this same issue and found another thread where somebody uninstalled Python and then reinstalled Python to fix it.
The key information to understand the problem though, was that they had originally installed Python using Microsoft Store. When they reinstalled Python, they just downloaded Python from python.org and this took care of the problem. It worked for me too.
It seems very likely that something in the Microsoft Store version is causing problems like this.

Answer 5

Start from administrator cmd or ide and try again, it's helped me.

Answer 6

Running from Jupyter Notebook with elevated privilegies worked for me!