cx_freeze debugging console?

Question

I try to build my (fine working) python 3.6 tkinter gui app to a windows excecutable. After hours of trial an error (with some name and dll issues) I got it to run. But it seems to have varoius of bugs. Some functions seem not to work and I have no console output of the produced error... is there a way to debug the exe?

this is my setup.py

import sys
from cx_Freeze import setup, Executable
import os

os.environ['TCL_LIBRARY'] = r'C:\Users\xxx\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python36\tcl\tcl8.6'
os.environ['TK_LIBRARY'] = r'C:\Users\xxx\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python36\tcl\tk8.6'

base = None
if sys.platform == 'win32':
    base = 'Win32GUI'

executables = [
    Executable('myApp.py', base=base)
]

build_exe_options = {"packages": ["tkinter",
                                  "PIL",
                                  "savReaderWriter",
                                  "numpy",
                                  "scipy",
                                  "os"],
                     "include_files": ["tcl86t.dll",
                                       "tk86t.dll"]}

setup(name='myApp',
      version='0.1',
      description='some description',
      options = {'build_exe': build_exe_options},
      executables=executables
      )

myApp.py

is too big to post it here. This is a snippet that only works 'unfreezed'. You need an spss.sav file like this to try this out.

from tkinter import *
from tkinter import ttk, filedialog, messagebox
from PIL import Image, ImageTk, ImageDraw
from savReaderWriter import SavReader
import numpy as np
from scipy.ndimage import gaussian_filter
import os

class MyApp:

    spss_file = None

    def import_spss(self, *args):

        filename = filedialog.askopenfilename()

        if filename:
            try:
                with SavReader(filename, returnHeader=True, ioUtf8=True) as reader:
                    spss_file = reader.all()

                self.spss_file = np.array(spss_file)

            except Exception as ex:
                messagebox.showinfo(title="Import SPSS File",
                                    message="Warning: wrong file format chosen! \nAccepted formats: sav")
                print(ex)
                return
        else:
            return


def main():
    App = MyApp()
    App.import_spss()
    print("everything works fine")

main()

Make sure your script works first. Once frozen if you have run it through command prompt, that is the best you will do for debugging at console level. The next level is to find out at what point it goes wrong and find common errors for that particular part of the script. — Xantium, Jun 14 '18 at 22:27
If you post some minimal code so we can run this then we can try and see what the problem is. — Xantium, Jun 14 '18 at 22:28
I added a function wich always causes the exception. The exception only occurs when 'frozen'. I tried it with the same file 'frozen' and 'unfrozen'. — elajdsha, Jun 14 '18 at 22:44
Do you have a `def __init__()` in you script elsewhere? Because `self.spss_file` does throw an error without it. — Xantium, Jun 14 '18 at 22:46
yes I have... with thousands of tkinter Labels, Buttons, Menus and instance variables... but this is not the problem i think... cause it initiates well and showes me the interface... i can click on the buttons, but only some bounded functions like the 'import_spss' function does not work correctly.. the rest is working well. — elajdsha, Jun 14 '18 at 22:51

score 6 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 15 '18 at 00:38

if you want the console window to appear, after it is frozen, just remove this code from the setup script:

if sys.platform == 'win32':
    base = 'Win32GUI'

what that code does is it tells cx_Freeze to have the console window not show up, after frozen. this is only required on windows, because on other OSes,it depends on whether or not it was run from a terminal. make sure though, when you have finished debugging it, to put that code back in, or the console window will show up in your app.
by the way, one of the most annoying problems I've ever had was when making a program with tkinter and cx_Freeze. the problem was that it was starting in the wrong directory and not able to find the TK Dll. If when you run this with the console, and you see something about a file not found, chances are you are not including it or it is in the wrong directory.
have a good day!

yea, with the console window showed up i now could see the errors. The savReaderWriter module causes the error. It searches the spssio files on a wrong place and i had to copy it manually into the build directory. — elajdsha, Jun 15 '18 at 01:39
by the way, if you want a way to have the script automatically copy files, there is a good example [here](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2553886/how-can-i-bundle-other-files-when-using-cx-freeze?utm_medium=organic&utm_source=google_rich_qa&utm_campaign=google_rich_qa) — Michael, Jun 15 '18 at 03:02

cx_freeze debugging console?

1 Answers1