I made a program for people at work that simply takes csvs, converts them, and turns them into a csv that can be read by a different program and I have made the program in Python. Everyone here uses Windows so I originally used py2exe to make an exe and it worked fine for everyone.
Recently, I made some changes to the code to use the newest Python version which py2exe does not support so I used pyinstaller which worked great. However, when I passed it on to a few people at the office to test it, Windows SmartScreen caught it and the Anti-Virus program quarantined it for 3 hours. Obviously this is not ideal. What can I do to not make SmartScreen catch it? And why would py2exe not trigger the same warnings?
SmartScreen show this warning for executables that are not popular and unfortunately Microsoft does't give a certain number of downloads to SmartScreen stop triggering out.
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About a month ago, I used PyInstaller and Inno Setup to produce an installer for my Python 3 script. My AVG Business Edition AntiVirus just started complaining with today's update that the program has an SCGeneric Trojan Horse in the main .exe file used to start the program (in the folder created by PyInstaller that has all of the Python "guts"). At first I just thought it was a false positive in AVG, but submitting the .exe file to VirusTotal I get this analysis:
https://virustotal.com/en/file/9b0c24a5a90d8e3a12d2e07e3f5e5224869c01732b2c79fd88a8986b8cf30406/analysis/1493881088/
Which shows that 11 out of 61 scanners detect a problem:
TheHacker Trojan/Agent.am
NANO-Antivirus Trojan.Win32.Agent.elyxeb
DrWeb Trojan.Starter.7246
Yandex Trojan.Crypren!52N9f3NgRrY
Jiangmin Trojan.Agent.asnd
SentinelOne (Static ML) static engine - malicious
AVG SCGeneric.KTO
Rising Malware.Generic.5!tfe (thunder:5:ujHAaqkyw6C)
CrowdStrike Falcon (ML) malicious_confidence_93% (D)
Endgame malicious (high confidence) 20170503
Zillya Dropper.Sysn.Win32.5954
Now I can't say that these other scanners are ones that I have heard of before... but still I'm concerned that it is not just AVG giving a false positive.
I have submitted the .exe file in question to AVG for their analysis. Hopefully they will back off on whatever it is that they thought they were trying to detect.
Is there anything else I can do with PyInstaller to make it so that the .exe launcher that it created won't be considered a Trojan?
I was always getting some false positives with PyInstaller from VirusTotal. This is how I fixed it:
PyInstaller comes with pre-compiled bootloader binaries for different OSs. I suggest compile them by yourself on your machine. Make sure everything is consistent on your machine. For Windows 64-bit, install Python 64-bit. Download PyInstaller 64-bit for Windows. Make sure Visual Studio (VS) corresponding to your Python is installed, check below:
https://wiki.python.org/moin/WindowsCompilers
Compile the bootloader of PyInstaller on your machine with VS. It automatically updates the run.exe, runw.exe, run_d.exe, runw_d.exe in DownloadedPyinstallerFolder\PyInstaller\bootloader\Windows-64bit. Check below for more info on how to compile the bootloader:
https://pyinstaller.readthedocs.io/en/stable/bootloader-building.html
At the end, install PyInstaller. Within the PyInstaller directory, run
python setup.py install
I was able to submit the file in question to AVG's "Report a false detection" page, at https://secure.avg.com/submit-sample. I received a response back fairly quickly (I can't remember exactly how long, but it was less than a day) that they had analyzed my file and determined that it did not have a virus. They said that they had adjusted their virus definitions so that it would not trigger a false positive anymore. I updated my definitions and it was still triggering, so I contacted them again with my virus definition version, and I heard back that the version I had wasn't high enough - I think there was some delay on my definitions because I get them from a local server. But within a day I had the right version of the definitions and the false positive didn't trigger anymore.
So if you have a false positive with AVG, I would recommend this solution - fairly quick and easy to get a resolution to the problem.
I puzzled over this question for two days and finally found a problem with my application. The issue was with the application's icon.
Example for tkinter:
root.iconbitmap('./icon.ico')
When I removed this line of code, the false-positive Trojan was gone.
Also, make sure not to use --icon dependency when you are converting your .py file into .exe. Otherwise, this will cause the same false-positive Trojan detection.
I faced same issue for my small document register project code.
My temporary solution was to allow the app in windows defender and
other solution was to use the command pyinstaller filename.py instead of pyinstaller --onefile filename.py.
I dont know if it is correct. But it worked for me.
I searched many blogs for weeks. But I found nothing..
Today I found a way to convert py to exe without any virus errors.
Virus Total Report
So in this method you do not need to send any reports.. Actually It is very simple.
You need to install a module named Nuitka.
python -m pip install nuitka
Then you need to open command from from the file path. And use the command;
python -m nuitka --mingw64 filename.py
And that's all.
You can use the command
nuitka --help
You can find more at - Nuitka Guide
I had this same problem using python 3.8.5 and pyinstaller 4.5.1
In my case the first exe build was accepted by the antivirus (Windows Defender) but subsequent builds were flagged as having a trojan.
I solved it by using the pyinstaller --clean option every time I built the executable
Reverting back to PyInstaller 3.1.1 from 3.4 resolved similar issues on my end (at least temporarily).
As #boogie_bullfrog told, reverting to a previous version could be a solution. However I used *.spec file to store some data (like pictures and icons). I had the latest 3.5 version (August, 2019) and moving to 3.1.1 caused error when app was compiled (probably due to supporting Python 3.7).
So right now the easiest solution is to downgrade to 3.4
It supports specs from pyinstaller 3.5 and the onefile-app wasn't detected by Windows 10 built-in firewall
What I did was to solve this(make exe files non detectable as virus) was to downgrade pyinstaller by typing in cmd: pip install pyinstaller==4.1.0
And by the way it didn't work on 3.4.0 so I just randomly picked that version(4.1) and its pretty good looking so far :>
I'm pretty sure that it works on more than only that one version but that i experienced personally
Recompile and then reinstall your Pyinstaller bootloader manually.
This was a problem I had for a while, and my friend and I figured out this resolution with the help of many others. It almost always works to resolve the issue.
I posted the specific steps on my medium blog. Shared the link below, but the basic steps are as follows
Purge Pyinstaller Files within your Project and Rebuild
Uninstall Pyinstaller
Build a Pyinstaller Bootloader with your Compiler
Install the newly compiled Pyinstaller
Re-build your EXE with Pyinstaller, and make sure it’s not being be flagged as a virus
How to Resolve the Python Pyinstaller False Positive Trojan Virus
Part 1. Manually Compile your Pyinstaller Bootloader
Part 2. Working with Anti-Virus Developer(s)
I had a similar problem with a pyinstaller exe under Windows. Avira put that file into quarantine since it was considered potentially dangerous (due to heuristics, which means that some segments look typical for a virus, but no virus is actually found).
Keep in mind that the exe files you generate yourself are unique (as a consequence, the Avast scanner usually returns a message "you have found a rare file, we are doing a quick test", and delays execution for 15 seconds to perform a more thorough test).
My solution consists of some steps:
I have uploaded the exe to https://www.virustotal.com/gui/home/upload to check it with many scanners. If just one or two are detecting a virus, you should be on the safe side.
In order to make your local virus scanner accept the file, you can manually accept it for your computer, but this does not solve the underlying problem, so on other computers it would still be flagged as a virus.
Therefore I reported the file as false positive to Avira, which can simply be done by sending it by email. Other scanners have similar feedback lines. I got a feedback by email within one day that it is ok, and the scanner on my pc agrees with this now. Hope that this helps with the next iterations of my exe so that it stays clean.
Had the same problem today. Win8.1 would keep flagging .exe as virus. Updated to pyinstaller 5.7.0 but the issue persisted. Uninstalled pyinstaller 5.7.0 and did a fresh install. Strangely, Win8.1 isn't complaining anymore!
I have generated an .exe-file for a little PowerPoint Tool, that I've written using python 3.6, the PyQt5 framework and pyinstaller. The program runs without any errors on my own laptop and functions as expected.
Unfortunately, I can't get the .exe to run on a different computer. I've tried with 2 other computers now and get different errors on each of them.
PC 1:
Entry Point not found
The procedure entry point ucrtbase.terminate could not be
located in the dynamic link library api-ms-win-crt-runtime-l1-1-0.dll.
PC 2:
This application failed to start because it could not load the Qt platform plugin 'Windows'.
The thing, that bugs me is, that I had this last error (from PC2) during development on my dev computer, but fixed this problem for my own PC.
What I was trying to do is create an .exe-file that just runs on any PC. It's a simple PowerPoint Helper, which is supposed to be a quick tool to create new slides from a folder of images. That is why it's pretty important, that it can be seamlessly used. Ideally just opening the .exe and go, without the need to worry about individual missing pieces on every single computer, where it will be utilized.
BIG QUESTION: Is there anything I can do, to guarantee my .exe to include all the dependencies that are needed to run?
Things I've tried (aka I DID try to solve it myself.. for days):
read trough here: https://github.com/pyqt/python-qt5/issues/2
changed my .specas mentioned here: https://github.com/carlosperate/pyinstaller-test/blob/master/package/pyqt5_test.spec
read through all of this: https://stackoverflow.com/search?page=2&tab=Relevance&q=entry%20point%20not%20found
and this: https://stackoverflow.com/search?q=qt+platform+windows
and this: pyinstaller exe without any dependencies?
But nothing helps.... Most of the posts address problems when compiling the executable file, but this works just fine for me.
If using Python 3.5, PyInstaller 3.3.1 and PyQt 5.9.2 is an option for you, use fbs instead of PyInstaller to freeze your application. It is based on PyInstaller but solves edge cases like the one you are experiencing. There are instructions for setting up your app for use with fbs here.
I have tried many times to use a compiler like cx_freeze and other programs, but for some reason nothing seems to be working. I made a little game which I want to send to a friend, but he needs python installed.
Can't I just put python.exe and pygame into the folder that I will send my friend and won't python be installed then, and all he needs to do is run the program .py and it will work? Sorry if I'm not being clear.. I'm just trying to find a simple way to compile my code to let users not waste time on downloading pygame and python.
py2exe allows you to package python applications for Windows. Right now it supports everything from 2.4 - 3.1 of python. You do however need to be able to redistribute MSVCR90.dll.
There are a range of distribution tools and you can find a list here.
Since you've had difficultly with several tools now updating your question with error codes and speific problems will yeild better responses.
From my knowledge, just putting a bunch of your stuff in one folder and sending doesn't work. It would be easier to make a .exe
That way your stuff will be protected, and users can easily start it. Otherwise idk. Try using pyinstaller again. It should work if you have a python.x
CX_Freeze is known for having many bugs and problems, Pyg.exe is new to me also. Your best bet is just keep trying until you find a solution.
Putting python.exe and your script together in a folder will not work for distribution. You require all Python dependencies - at best your would need to include all of your Python folder, and it still might not work. The best method would be compilation or packaging with programs such as py2exe, cx_freeze, Cython, pyg.exe, etc.
I want to use visual for my project. I've used it many times before and everything was just fine, but I recently changed jobs so am using it on a machine that I've never worked on before
The problem is somewhat peculiar: when I run one of the example scripts from /visual/examples everything is just fine. However when I try to run a very simple script:
import visual
visual.sphere(pos=[0.,0.,0.],radius=1.,color=visual.color.red)
it takes a couple minutes to execute. This is completely unacceptable for the project I want to use it for.
I've tried running this sort of scripts from command line and IPython but the behaviour is the same: a visual window appears, Windows tags the window as "not responding" and then, after some painfully long time, the entire scene appears as expected.
This is clearly not a problem with what IDE I use to call visual and I'm seriously clueless about how to solve this. If that's of any importance I'm using a 64 bit Windows (also downloaded 64b visual) and a Python distribution that comes with Anaconda.
An interesting observation: The Python interpreter from which I run the script is not busy, i.e. I can execute other commands in it while the visual scene is not displaying correctly.
Any help or even ideas on what to do to try and resolve this issue would be very much appreciated.
Do you have either a visual.sleep(pause_time) or visual.rate(frequency) line somewhere in your visualization loop? VPython requires one of these two lines to update the animation window.
I would start from scratch with a base python distribution/implementation.
Try downloading first a stock 64-bit Windows Python-2.7.5 : http://python.org/ftp/python/2.7.5/python-2.7.5.amd64.msi
Then download VPython-Win-64 : http://sourceforge.net/projects/vpythonwx/files/6.05-release/VPython-Win-64-Py2.7-6.05.exe/download
If this doesn't work, then it might be an issue with something other than vpython or anaconda.
If you can get it to work properly, then you can isolate the problem to either Anaconda's python implementation or the VPython module itself.
ok so for the past two weeks or so, ive been learning python as it is extremely simple to comprehend and a very handy method of creating a GUI for a program. However i have three problems.
First, when i open my .py file a command window opens , and then my program opens on top of that. Is there a way to just open the program? (and not the command window)
Second, ive been eagerly searching for a simple method of compiling (or "interpreting")
my .py filesinto .exe files. ive come across a few people saying that the program called py2exe is the best method, however i cant get it to work... Are there any easier methods for compiling python source codes into executable files?
Third, can anyone refer me to a site with a list of modules for python, along with their descriptions and.or examples? this would greatly help me as i tried using the built in help commands in the python command line, but i find that too generic, like it gives the syntax but no examples of what applications each command/module has.
P.S: Just wondering, is there a site that offers example programs (and their source codes) that were made with python that i could take a look at to better understand this language?
(examples: Python Games, Python GUI applications, Python Questionaires, Any Python Programs/applications that demonstrate the language's usefulness)
INFORMATION:
OS: WINDOWS 7: Ultimate Edition
Python Version: 2.6
Thanks in Advance!
To keep the command window from opening, you can save it as a .pyw file, as opposed to the usual .py. As for converting to exe, py2exe works best for me, I know there are several others, but not as fully developed as py2exe is. Python.org should contain a list of most modules. The same results could easily be procured by googling python modules.
EDIT:
Also, as for the gui, I have found that I personally like pyqt and tkinter best.
Use pythonw.exe instead of python.exe to run your program.
I use cx_freeze; docs on their website.
PyPI