Pyinstaller setting icon with one file not working

Question

I'm trying to generate a one-file executable with Pyinstaller and it always fails if I try to add an icon, but when I don't ask my computer to add the icon, the app builds successfully. I've tried following the instructions on the following pages:

https://github.com/PySimpleGUI/PySimpleGUI/issues/445

https://shanetully.com/2013/08/cross-platform-deployment-of-python-applications-with-pyinstaller/

Pyinstaller setting icon

but none of them helped me. Based on the page behind the second of those links, I added the following lines (the latter I added since I'm using Windows, but I couldn't understand what if sys.platform == 'win32' else a.binaries, (mentioned at shanetully's website) is supposed to do):

a.datas + [('images/ticon.ico', 'tfolder/images/ticon.ico', 'DATA')]
a.binaries + [('msvcp100.dll', 'C:\\Windows\\System32\\msvcp100.dll', 'BINARY'),
          ('msvcr100.dll', 'C:\\Windows\\System32\\msvcr100.dll', 'BINARY')]

to the .spec file and copied the icon to tfolder/images.

The error message I got (and have been getting similar or identical messages with previous attempts as well) was the following. (with my computer username replaced with my stackoverflow username:

PS C:\Users\hilssu\Documents\pyinstaller_ij> pyinstaller.exe "C:\Users\hilssu\Documents\pyinstaller_ij\main.spec"
103 INFO: PyInstaller: 3.4
103 INFO: Python: 3.5.6
106 INFO: Platform: Windows-10-10.0.17134-SP0
109 INFO: UPX is not available.
112 INFO: Extending PYTHONPATH with paths
['C:\\Users\\hilssu\\Documents\\pyinstaller_ij',
 'C:\\Users\\hilssu\\Documents\\pyinstaller_ij']
114 INFO: checking Analysis
297 INFO: checking PYZ
364 INFO: checking PKG
446 INFO: Building because C:\Users\hilssu\Documents\pyinstaller_ij\build\main\main.exe.manifest changed
446 INFO: Building PKG (CArchive) PKG-00.pkg
156467 INFO: Building PKG (CArchive) PKG-00.pkg completed successfully.
156523 INFO: Bootloader c:\program files\anaconda3\lib\site-packages\PyInstaller\bootloader\Windows-64bit\run.exe
156523 INFO: checking EXE
156525 INFO: Building EXE because EXE-00.toc is non existent
156530 INFO: Building EXE from EXE-00.toc
156537 INFO: SRCPATH [('images\\ticon.ico', None)]
156538 INFO: Updating icons from ['images\\ticon.ico'] to C:\Users\hilssu\AppData\Local\Temp\tmpzh0lbqym
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "c:\program files\anaconda3\lib\runpy.py", line 193, in _run_module_as_main
    "__main__", mod_spec)
  File "c:\program files\anaconda3\lib\runpy.py", line 85, in _run_code
    exec(code, run_globals)
  File "C:\Program Files\Anaconda3\Scripts\pyinstaller.exe\__main__.py", line 9, in <module>
  File "c:\program files\anaconda3\lib\site-packages\PyInstaller\__main__.py", line 111, in run
    run_build(pyi_config, spec_file, **vars(args))
  File "c:\program files\anaconda3\lib\site-packages\PyInstaller\__main__.py", line 63, in run_build
    PyInstaller.building.build_main.main(pyi_config, spec_file, **kwargs)
  File "c:\program files\anaconda3\lib\site-packages\PyInstaller\building\build_main.py", line 838, in main
    build(specfile, kw.get('distpath'), kw.get('workpath'), kw.get('clean_build'))
  File "c:\program files\anaconda3\lib\site-packages\PyInstaller\building\build_main.py", line 784, in build
    exec(text, spec_namespace)
  File "<string>", line 35, in <module>
  File "c:\program files\anaconda3\lib\site-packages\PyInstaller\building\api.py", line 433, in __init__
    self.__postinit__()
  File "c:\program files\anaconda3\lib\site-packages\PyInstaller\building\datastruct.py", line 158, in __postinit__
    self.assemble()
  File "c:\program files\anaconda3\lib\site-packages\PyInstaller\building\api.py", line 522, in assemble
    icon.CopyIcons(tmpnm, self.icon)
  File "c:\program files\anaconda3\lib\site-packages\PyInstaller\utils\win32\icon.py", line 177, in CopyIcons
    return CopyIcons_FromIco(dstpath, [srcpath])
  File "c:\program files\anaconda3\lib\site-packages\PyInstaller\utils\win32\icon.py", line 137, in CopyIcons_FromIco
    win32api.UpdateResource(hdst, RT_GROUP_ICON, i, data)
  File "c:\program files\anaconda3\lib\site-packages\win32ctypes\pywin32\win32api.py", line 269, in UpdateResource
    handle, type, name, language, lp_data, len(lp_data))
  File "c:\program files\anaconda3\lib\site-packages\win32ctypes\core\cffi\_resource.py", line 129, in _UpdateResource
    lpData = ffi.from_buffer(cData)
  File "c:\program files\anaconda3\lib\site-packages\cffi\api.py", line 340, in from_buffer
    return self._backend.from_buffer(self.BCharA, python_buffer)
TypeError: from_buffer() cannot return the address of the raw string within a bytes or unicode object

And yes, I tried googling the last line of the error message on its own, but couldn't find any help that way either.

By the way, this is an app where I actually do want the console to appear when running it.

Answer 1

EDIT: I had to reset the entire computer and this time installed Python as is and did not use Anaconda like I had previously used. This time Pyinstaller worked fine.

ORIGINAL ANSWER (unedited):

I couldn't get Pyinstaller to work, but there is a workaround. You can compile the program first without the icon (pyinstaller.exe --onefile main.py) on the command line and then use a program called Resource Hacker (http://www.angusj.com/resourcehacker/) to change the icon afterwards.

After changing the icon using Resource Hacker, you may need to move the executable to another place for the icon to appear in the file manager. I moved the executable to my SD card and then the icon appeared, and it appears also when I copy the executable back to my computer's hard drive.