In previous article, we have discussed about most of the commonly used options for PyInstaller library. There are two more very useful options but you may encounter some issues when you use them for the first time. In this article, we will discuss about the common issues for using PyInstaller –icon and –upxdir options.
Customize icon for your exe file with –icon
PyInstaller has the –icon option to specify your own icon when creating the executable file. If this option is not given, the exe files will be generated with default icon as per below.
You can use –icon followed by image file name to let PyInstaller to use your own icon. You may see errors when you try to use a normal image format as icon, in this case you can convert your image file into .ico format and run the command again.
For demo purpose, I downloaded an icon from this website into my project folder to use it for my app. And with the below command, I shall be able to get new look for my exe file.
pyinstaller --onefile hello.py --name "SuperHero" --add-data "test.config;." --icon "superhero.icon" --clean
Below is how it looks like when the new exe file generated:
Sometimes, you may also find that the icon did not get changed after you rebuilt the executable file, but when checking the “General” tab in file properties, you are able to see the new icon displayed. This is due to the window icon cache, you may try to delete the cache files from the below directory and retry.
User\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer\IconCacheToDelete
Or if you specify a new name for your exe file, you shall be able to see the new icon applied.
Reduce file size with PyInstaller –upx-dir option
When you used a lot of libraries or resource files, your executable file can grow very big and become difficult for distribution. In this case, you can use upx to compress your exe file.
You can download the upx executable file into your PC and copy the full path as the parameter value for –upx-dir option. E.g.:
pyinstaller --onefile hello.py --name "SuperHero" --add-data "test.config;." --icon "superhero.icon" --upx-dir "c:\upx-3.96-win64" --clean
Sometimes you may find even there is no error when you build the executable file, there can be a runtime error such as the below, which showing that VCRUNTIME140.dll is either not designed to run on Windows or it contains an error.
This issue is due to PyInstaller modified the dll files during packing and compressing. The workaround is that you use the –upx-exclude to exclude the particular dll files. (No need to specify the path for the dll)
pyinstaller --onefile hello.py --name "SuperHero" --add-data "test.config;." --icon "superhero.icon" --upx-dir "c:\upx-3.96-win64" --upx-exclude "VCRUNTIME140.dll" --clean
Conclusion
Beside the above issues we discussed, you may occasional encounter some other errors, you will need to check both your Python and PyInstaller versions to see if is it some compatibility issues. And also not all the Python libraries are supported by PyInstaller, you will need to check this list to see if you have used any libraries not in supported by PyInstaller.