PyInstaller + tkdnd/tkinterdnd2 "Unable to load tkdnd library" when launching frozen exe. Works when launched from script

Question

In my script I am using tkinterdnd2 library to achieve drag and drop functionality from Windows explorer into my tkinter UI.

from tkinterdnd2 import TkinterDnD, DND_FILES
import tkinter as tk

class TkWindow:
    def __init__(self):
        self.window = TkinterDnD.Tk()
        self.tbox = tk.Listbox(self.window)
        self.tbox.pack(fill=tk.BOTH)
        self.tbox.drop_target_register(DND_FILES)
        self.tbox.dnd_bind('<<Drop>>', self.tk_files_dropped)
        self.window.mainloop()

    def tk_files_dropped(self, event):
        messagebox.showinfo("x", event.data)

TkWindow()

When I launch the script - everything works.

But when I freeze the project to a single EXE with PyInstaller, and run it, I get this error:

I tried this solutions already:

1. I added the pyinstaller-hook as instructed in the tkinterdnd2 repository:

   from PyInstaller.utils.hooks import collect_data_files, eval_statement
datas = collect_data_files('tkinterdnd2')

2. I add --collect-all tkinterdnd2 when executing build command.

3. I tried copying tkdnd2.8 to tcl8.6 as mentioned in this answer

4. I tried getting rid of venv and installing all the packages directly into base python interpreter.

Prostatitis

when I was having issues with pyinstaller, I tried different methods which didn't work until I run pip uninstall typing in command prompt and it worked fine. – Granoff

@CEO do you mean uninstalling and installing pyinstaller? Tried that too. – Prostatitis

not really. Let me write it in the answer section then – Granoff

Does your code run without any error in the code editor? – Granoff

Yes. Without any error. Full repo is here: github.com/deshudiosh/PyWykladzinyLayout – Prostatitis

Answer 1

I used --collect-all TkinterDnD2 with upperCase.

Appellate

I already switched to wxpython but I am glad you answered. Seams that this might be the reason. – Prostatitis

I had to make it lower case. The full command I used was, python -m PyInstaller --noconsole -F --collect-all TkinterDnD2 main.py – Joshia

Answer 2

To convert a Python file to an exe, run pyinstaller.exe --collect-all TkinterDnD2 --windowed yor_app.py. This will create files and folders of the program that was created. You will find a file named TCL. Copy the tkdnd folder into it and then run the exe file

Graeme

pyinstaller.exe --collect-all TkinterDnD2 --windowed yor_app.py – Graeme

Doesn't the other answer already cover this? In any case, please mark code with backticks (`), not parentheses. See stackoverflow.com/help/formatting – Thereabout

Answer 3

None of the other answers worked for me.

I was successfull with:

pyinstaller -F --additional-hooks-dir=. --windowed gui.py

Plus using the hook file from the git repository https://github.com/pmgagne/tkinterdnd2/blob/master/hook-tkinterdnd2.py (MIT license):

"""pyinstaller hook file.

You need to use this hook-file if you are packaging a project using tkinterdnd2.
Just put hook-tkinterdnd2.py in the same directory where you call pyinstaller and type:

    pyinstaller myproject/myproject.py --additional-hooks-dir=.
"""

from PyInstaller.utils.hooks import collect_data_files, eval_statement


datas = collect_data_files('tkinterdnd2')

(There's a hint in https://pypi.org/project/tkinterdnd2/ at the bottom of the page.)

Hystero