PyInstaller generated .app file opens at terminal but not when double-clicked

[HenestrosaDev]

When I run pyinstaller audiotext.spec on Windows, the .exe file is successfully generated and I can open it without any problem. When I run this command on macOS, the bundle is also generated, but when I double-click on the .app file, the program doesn't start. However, if I double-click on the Unix executable file or run open Audiotext.app, the program starts. What is wrong with the .app file?

Here is the .spec file:

# -*- mode: python ; coding: utf-8 -*-
import os.path
from pathlib import Path
from PyInstaller.compat import is_darwin, is_win

import sys ; sys.setrecursionlimit(sys.getrecursionlimit() * 5)

relative_site_packages_path = "venv/Lib/site-packages" if is_win else "venv/lib/python3.10/site-packages"

datas = [
    (f"{relative_site_packages_path}/customtkinter", "customtkinter"),
    (f"{relative_site_packages_path}/transformers", "transformers"),
    (f"{relative_site_packages_path}/lightning", "lightning"),
    (f"{relative_site_packages_path}/lightning_fabric", "lightning_fabric"),
    (f"{relative_site_packages_path}/speechbrain", "speechbrain"),
    (f"{relative_site_packages_path}/pyannote", "pyannote"),
    (f"{relative_site_packages_path}/asteroid_filterbanks", "asteroid_filterbanks"),
    (f"{relative_site_packages_path}/whisperx", "whisperx"),
    (f"{relative_site_packages_path}/librosa", "librosa"),
    ("res", "res"),
    ("config.ini", "."),
    (".env", "."),
]

hiddenimports = [
    "huggingface_hub.repository",
    "sklearn.utils._cython_blas",
    "sklearn.neighbors.quad_tree",
    "sklearn.tree",
    "sklearn.tree._utils",
]

block_cipher = None

is_debug = True
if is_debug:
    options = [("v", None, "OPTION")]
else:
    options = []

a = Analysis(
    ["src/app.py"],
    pathex=[relative_site_packages_path],
    binaries=[],
    datas=datas,
    hiddenimports=hiddenimports,
    hookspath=[],
    hooksconfig={},
    runtime_hooks=[],
    excludes=[],
    win_no_prefer_redirects=False,
    win_private_assemblies=False,
    cipher=block_cipher,
    noarchive=False,
)

pyz = PYZ(a.pure, a.zipped_data, cipher=block_cipher)

macos_icon = "res/macos/icon.icns"
windows_icon = "res/windows/icon.ico"

exe = EXE(
    pyz,
    a.scripts,
    options,
    exclude_binaries=True,
    name="Audiotext",
    debug=is_debug,
    bootloader_ignore_signals=False,
    strip=False,
    upx=True,
    upx_exclude=[],
    runtime_tmpdir=None,
    console=is_debug,
    disable_windowed_traceback=False,
    argv_emulation=False,
    target_arch=None,
    codesign_identity=None,
    entitlements_file="res/macos/entitlements.plist" if is_darwin else None,
    icon=windows_icon if is_win else macos_icon,
)

coll = COLLECT(
    exe,
    a.binaries,
    a.zipfiles,
    a.datas,
    strip=False,
    upx=True,
    upx_exclude=[],
    name="Audiotext",
)

app = BUNDLE(
    coll,
    name="Audiotext.app",
    icon=macos_icon,
    bundle_identifier="com.henestrosadev.audiotext",
    version="2.3.0",
    info_plist={
        "NSPrincipalClass": "NSApplication",
        "NSAppleScriptEnabed": False,
        "NSHighResolutionCapable": True,
        "NSMicrophoneUsageDescription": "Allow Audiotext to record audio from your microphone to generate transcriptions.",
    }
)

Here is the repo with the code (the .spec file and the structure of the res folder will not be updated until I resolve this issue).

[rokm]

when I double-click on the .app file, the program doesn't start. However, if I double-click on the Unix executable file or run open Audiotext.app, the program starts.

This usually indicates that you are using some functionality that implicitly depends on full shell environment, which you get when you run your app from terminal, but not when application is ran from Finder. Usually this is debugged by wrapping your whole entry-point script into a try/except block and write the exception to a text file at fixed location.

    console=is_debug,

I've also seen .app bundles crash because they were not built with windowed/noconsole bootloader variant (#7123 (comment)). I.e., for .app bundles, console should always be set to False.

[bwoodsend]

I suspect you're in the same boat as #7459. If that's the case, you should be able to reproduce the issue by removing custom environment variables:

env -i ./dist/Audiotext.app/Contents/MacOS/Audiotext

If that's not the case then wrap your code in some try/except log error handling.

import traceback

try:
    main code here (including imports)
except:
    with open("/Users/Shared/error.log", "w") as f:
        f.write(traceback.format_exc())

[HenestrosaDev]

I was wrapping the code without the imports inside the try block. Now that I've added them, I finally have the following error in the error.log file:

ERROR:root:No ffmpeg exe could be found. Install ffmpeg on your system, or set the IMAGEIO_FFMPEG_EXE environment variable.

ffmpeg is indeed installed on my Mac, but when I run the .app file, it doesn't seem to find it.

[rokm]

Like I said, .app bundles launched from Finder receive very limited shell environment. One of consequences of that is that Homebrew directories are not in PATH, so utilities from there cannot be found.

You'll probably need to think what to do about ffmpeg anyway, if you want your .app to be portable. Either you'll need to bundle the copy from Homebrew on build system (and set IMAGEIO_FFMPEG_EXE so that it is discovered), or collect the copy bundled with imageio-ffmpeg (x86_64 macOS wheels for imageio-ffmpeg seem to bundle a ffmpeg executable), or assume that it is available on the system and modify the search paths accordingly.

[rokm]

or collect the copy bundled with imageio-ffmpeg (x86_64 macOS wheels for imageio-ffmpeg seem to bundle a ffmpeg executable)

Actually, this should be happening automatically, so if you are running into ffmpeg-not-found with imageio-ffmpeg, I suppose you are using arm64 environment?

[HenestrosaDev]

Yes, I use the arm64 environment.

I've tried doing the following in the .spec file to add ffmpeg with no success:

import shutil

...

binaries = [
    (shutil.which("ffmpeg"), "."),
    (shutil.which("ffprobe"), "."),
]

...

a = Analysis(
    binaries=binaries,
    ...
)

[rokm]

You need to also set IMAGEIO_FFMPEG_EXE environment variable at the start of your program (or add sys._MEIPASS to PATH environment variable, although IMAGEIO_FFMPEG_EXE should be preferable).

[HenestrosaDev]

That worked! Just to be sure, setting a custom value for IMAGEIO_FFMPEG_EXE only affects the program, not the system, right?

[rokm]

That worked! Just to be sure, setting a custom value for IMAGEIO_FFMPEG_EXE only affects the program, not the system, right?

Whatever environment modifications you make within your program are applicable only to that process and its child processes. (That goes for both IMAGEIO_FFMPEG_EXE and PATH environment variable modifications).

[HenestrosaDev]

Okay, thank you very much! :)

[HenestrosaDev]

Thank you @rokm and @bwoodsend for your help! .app now opens without problems. :)

[HenestrosaDev]

As I said earlier, the .app file opens without problems. However, when I try to generate a transcription with the program, I get the following error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "handlers/whisperx_handler.py", line 49, in transcribe_file
  File "whisperx/audio.py", line 61, in load_audio
    out = subprocess.run(cmd, capture_output=True, check=True).stdout
  File "subprocess.py", line 503, in run
  File "subprocess.py", line 971, in init
  File "subprocess.py", line 1847, in _execute_child
FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'ffmpeg'

This is the code of the load_audio method from the whisperx/audio.py file:

def load_audio(file: str, sr: int = SAMPLE_RATE):
    try:
        # Launches a subprocess to decode audio while down-mixing and resampling as necessary.
        # Requires the ffmpeg CLI to be installed.
        cmd = [
            "ffmpeg",
            "-nostdin",
            "-threads",
            "0",
            "-i",
            file,
            "-f",
            "s16le",
            "-ac",
            "1",
            "-acodec",
            "pcm_s16le",
            "-ar",
            str(sr),
            "-",
        ]
        out = subprocess.run(cmd, capture_output=True, check=True).stdout
    except subprocess.CalledProcessError as e:
        raise RuntimeError(f"Failed to load audio: {e.stderr.decode()}") from e

    return np.frombuffer(out, np.int16).flatten().astype(np.float32) / 32768.0

[rokm]

This sort of invocation requires ffmpeg executable to be in PATH.

[HenestrosaDev]

Indeed. I fixed it by adding the absolute path to the root of the program. Here is the code:

from pathlib import Path
import os

def get_root_path() -> Path:
    if getattr(sys, "frozen", False) and hasattr(sys, "_MEIPASS"):
        return Path(sys._MEIPASS)
    else:
        return Path(__file__).parent.parent.parent

os.environ["PATH"] += os.pathsep + str(get_root_path())

Once again, thank you very much!