Creating an OSX PyQt app using Pyinstaller 2, PyQt4 and Qt5

Question

I am trying to package a PyQt program for OSX using PyInstaller 2, where PyQt4 (4.10) has been built against Qt 5.0.2 (from Git). The following simple example doesn't work.

import sys
from PyQt4.QtGui import QApplication, QMessageBox

def main():
    print "Hello"
    a = QApplication(sys.argv)
    m = QMessageBox(QMessageBox.Information, "Title", "Hello")
    m.exec_()

if __name__=="__main__":
    main()

Spec file generated using pyinstaller-2.0/utils/MakeSpec.py and modified to add the BUNDLE class.

a = Analysis(['hello.py'],
         pathex=['/Users/glenn/rp/src/demo'],
         hiddenimports=[],
         hookspath=None)

pyz = PYZ(a.pure)

exe = EXE(pyz,
      a.scripts,
      exclude_binaries=1,
      name=os.path.join('build/pyi.darwin/hello', 'hello'),
      debug=False,
      strip=None,
      upx=True,
      console=False )

coll = COLLECT(exe,
           a.binaries,
           a.zipfiles,
           a.datas,
           strip=None,
           upx=True,
           name=os.path.join('dist', 'hello'))

app = BUNDLE(coll,
        name=os.path.join('dist', 'hello.app'),
        appname="Hello",
        version = '0.1'
        )

Packaging command

> python pyinstaller.py --windowed hello.spec

Running the binary directly from the terminal gives this output before it crashes:

$ ./dist/hello.app/Contents/MacOS/hello 
Hello
Failed to load platform plugin "cocoa". Available platforms are: 

Abort trap: 6

and this is the stack trace:

Exception Type:  EXC_CRASH (SIGABRT)
Exception Codes: 0x0000000000000000, 0x0000000000000000

Application Specific Information:
abort() called

Thread 0 Crashed:: Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread
0   libsystem_kernel.dylib          0x9a671a6a __pthread_kill + 10
1   libsystem_c.dylib               0x93163b2f pthread_kill + 101
2   libsystem_c.dylib               0x9319a4ec abort + 168
3   QtCore                          0x03db156b qt_message_fatal(QtMsgType, QMessageLogContext const&, QString const&) + 11
4   QtCore                          0x03db19df QMessageLogger::fatal(char const*, ...) const + 63
5   QtGui                           0x068abceb QGuiApplicationPrivate::createPlatformIntegration() + 3547
6   QtGui                           0x068abd16 QGuiApplicationPrivate::createEventDispatcher() + 38
7   QtCore                          0x03f4f2c4 QCoreApplication::init() + 100
8   QtCore                          0x03f4f23b QCoreApplication::QCoreApplication(QCoreApplicationPrivate&) + 59
9   QtGui                           0x068aa0d0 QGuiApplication::QGuiApplication(QGuiApplicationPrivate&) + 32
10  QtWidgets                       0x06c695de QApplication::QApplication(int&, char**, int) + 238
11  PyQt4.QtGui.so                  0x06394454 init_QApplication + 196
12  sip.so                          0x007bc7d5 sipSimpleWrapper_init + 266
13  Python                          0x0385c174 type_call + 340
14  Python                          0x0380d401 PyObject_Call + 97
15  Python                          0x0389c093 PyEval_EvalFrameEx + 10131
16  Python                          0x038a0490 fast_function + 192
17  Python                          0x0389beae PyEval_EvalFrameEx + 9646
18  Python                          0x038998b2 PyEval_EvalCodeEx + 1922
19  Python                          0x03899127 PyEval_EvalCode + 87
20  Python                          0x038be06e PyRun_StringFlags + 126
21  Python                          0x038bdfb1 PyRun_SimpleStringFlags + 81
22  Python                          0x038bf619 PyRun_SimpleString + 25
23  hello                           0x00003240 runScripts + 240
24  hello                           0x0000280a main + 442
25  hello                           0x00001eb9 _start + 224
26  hello                           0x00001dd8 start + 40

The issue appears to be that it can't find the libqcocoa.dylib plugin. This is not surprising as it is not packaged. Is that the actual issue here and do I need to include this plugin? If so where does it need to go? I have tried putting it in demo.app/Contents/plugins but that doesn't help.

Answer 1

The right place to put libqcocoa.dylib is in Contents/MacOS/qt4_plugins/platforms:

extralibs = [("qt4_plugins/platforms/libqcocoa.dylib", "/path/to/libqcocoa.dylib", "BINARY")
             ]
coll = COLLECT(exe,
               a.binaries + extralibs,
               a.zipfiles,
               a.datas,
               strip=None,
               upx=False,
               name=os.path.join('dist', 'hello'))

The app now starts but the dialog window never appears. Edit: This is because PyInstaller (v 2.0) adds LSBackgroundOnly=true to the apps Info.plist. Removing this allows the window to show.