How to fix “could not find or load the Qt platform plugin windows” while using Matplotlib in PyCharm

Question

I am getting the error \"could not find or load the Qt platform plugin windows\" while using matplotlib in PyCharm.

How can I solve this?

Answer 1

copy platforms from Anaconda3\Library\plugins and put it in the Anaconda3. for env put the platforms in the specific env\ folder

Answer 2

SOLUTION FOR WINDOWS USERS

Create new environment variable with:

name: QT_PLUGIN_PATH path: C:\yourpythonpath\Lib\site-packages\PyQt5\Qt\plugins

after that exe file will work

Answer 3

You may need to copy the "plugins" file in Anaconda3\Library. For example, on my computer it is

S:\Anaconda3\Library\plugins

to the same path of your .exe file.

Answer 4

If the Pycharm console or debugger are showing "Could not find or load the Qt platform plugin windows", the Python EXE file may be located at a different location for the PyCharm interpreter. You might manually select it in File -> Settings -> Interpreter.

1. Set the working directory: File -> Settings -> Build, Execution, Deployment -> Console -> Python Console -> Working directory. Set it to the parent directory where your all code exists.

2. Open Control Panel -> System Settings -> Advanced System Settings -> Environment Variables -> New. Set the variable name QT_PLUGIN_PATH , Variable Directory: Users\<Username>\Appdata\Local\Continuum\Anaconda2\Library\plugins.

3. Restart Pycharm.

Answer 5

I have found a solution that worked for me. This solution includes a code snippet to add before you import any modules from Pyside2 or PyQt5 package. See "Qt platform plugin "windows" #2" for more information.

This code snippet is from the link:

import os
import PySide2

dirname = os.path.dirname(PySide2.__file__)
plugin_path = os.path.join(dirname, 'plugins', 'platforms')
os.environ['QT_QPA_PLATFORM_PLUGIN_PATH'] = plugin_path

from PySide2.QtWidgets import *
'''
Your code goes here
'''

This solution works for PyQt5 and PySide2 modules. I don't know if it's relevant but I added the QT_PLUGIN_PATH environment variable in the system before.

That solution enabled me to test PySide2 scripts in IDLE.

However, I faced the same error when I tried to run a bundled script (exe).

With some shallow debugging, it's evident that plugin folder itself is missing. I fixed the problem by adding the plugin folder in the appropriate location:

C:\Users\xxxx\.spyder-py3\My_QtProjects\Project 1\dist\MyQt_1\PySide2\

Answer 6

On Windows:

1. Copy the folder platforms:

   C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Roaming\pyinstaller\bincache00_py35_64bit\pyqt5\qt\plugins\platforms 
   

2. Paste the folder platform into the folder location of the file .exe:

   Example:

   c:\MyFolder\yourFile.exe
   c:\MyFolder\platforms