Freezing ImageIO¶
When freezing ImageIO you need to make sure that you are collecting the plugins you need in addition to the core library. This will not happen automagically, because plugins are lazy-loaded upon first use for better platform support and reduced loading times. This lazy-loading is an interesting case as (1) these plugins are exactly the kind of thing that PyInstaller tries desperately to avoid collecting to minimize package size and (2) these plugins are - by themself - super lightweight and won’t bloat the package.
To add plugins to the application your first option is to add all of imageio to your package, which will also include the plugins. This can be done by using a command-line switch when calling pyinstaller that will gather all plugins:
pyinstaller --collect-submodules imageio <entry_script.py>
Alternatively, if you want to limit the plugins used, you can include them
individually using --hidden-import:
pyinstaller --hidden-import imageio.plugins.<plugin> <entry_script.py>
In addition, some plugins (e.g., ffmpeg) make use of external programs, and for these, you will need to take extra steps to also include necessary binaries. If you can’t make it work, feel free to submit a new issue, so that we can see how to improve this documentation further.