Deploying qt5.2.0: won't find windows platform plugin

[geoniko]

"That directory “QTDIR/Qt5.2.0/5.2.0/mingw48_32/plugins/platforms” is written into your Qt files when you install it"

Can you be more specific? Where exactly is it written too? I need to build x64 windows version of Qt 5.3 for VS2012 (which is not available for download). It would be good to set this correctly so that at least for developers it will work...

Thanks for any advice...

[Priya_sipl]

Hello Geonlko,

“That directory “QTDIR/Qt5.2.0/5.2.0/mingw48_32/plugins/platforms” is written into your Qt files when you install it” means

When we install qt (in this it is Qt5.2.0 mingw 32 bit version) in our system,
all packages get installed with it.

In that packages you will find platform folder that has platform specific dlls.

These are required when we build setup for our Qt application.

For Qt 5.3 64 bit version, you have to go for VS2013, it is available

[JKSH]

[quote author="geoniko" date="1401351479"]"That directory “QTDIR/Qt5.2.0/5.2.0/mingw48_32/plugins/platforms” is written into your Qt files when you install it"

Can you be more specific? Where exactly is it written too?[/quote]They are written inside the DLLs themselves.

In hindsight, that's a poor decision because it prevents people from moving their Qt installation to a different folders, but changing this behaviour isn't high on the priority list.

[quote]I need to build x64 windows version of Qt 5.3 for VS2012 (which is not available for download). It would be good to set this correctly so that at least for developers it will work...[/quote]When you run configure.bat, set the -prefix option to the path where you want to install Qt.

Then, make sure that your Qt libraries are located in this exact path on each of your developers' machines.

[frankiefrank]

I stumbled upon this post, while having some deployment issues.

@hskoglund
You wrote about a post where you talk about how to set the path Qt uses to find plugins. But I think your blog changed, cause the correct post now lists 5+ ways, and it is located here:
http://www.tripleboot.org/?p=536

[hskoglund]

Hi, actually it's two different blog posts; what happened is that in March I wrote a blog post (the one I refer to at the top of this page) then I realized the topic about plugins and DLLs needed another blog post :-) and that's the one you're referring to.

[frankiefrank]

bq. Note that the 32-bit MSVC DLL files are in SysWOW64 and the 64-bit files are in System32. Makes perfect sense, agreed?

I had to reread this one three times.

[Lumit]

This works, thanks to JKSH
[quote author="JKSH" date="1394236581"]Glad I could help. :) Thank you for blogging about Qt and for helping others use Qt![/quote]

[Angivare]

Hi, I was the original poster.
That post was just to notify you: JKSH's way is the exact good way to release your applications, and it worked for several applications in my case!

Although, it still doesn't work for the original application I was trying to build..
I guess that's really just a bug, but I won't be able to post a bug ticket as the problem seems to be linked with the actual application, and I can't find what caused it in the application (which is pretty big unfortunately..)

[AlterX]

I have same problem using Qt 5.3
Despite I have tried all combinations, I am not able to lauch application: it always says that it is not able to find windows plugin!!!

[JKSH]

Hi,

[quote author="AlterX" date="1416406048"]I have same problem using Qt 5.3
Despite I have tried all combinations, I am not able to lauch application: it always says that it is not able to find windows plugin!!![/quote]What combinations did you try?

Did you follow the instructions at http://qt-project.org/wiki/Deploy_an_Application_on_Windows closely?

[AlterX]

yes, I have my app and then platforms/qwindows.dll
then I tried plugins/platforms/qwindows.dll
then qwindows.dll in same dir of exe
I tried to use qt.conf and put plugins path to "."
All above leads to same error!

[JKSH]

[quote author="AlterX" date="1416406280"]yes, I have my app and then platforms/qwindows.dll
then I tried plugins/platforms/qwindows.dll
then qwindows.dll in same dir of exe
I tried to use qt.conf and put plugins path to "."
All above leads to same error![/quote]It's not just about qwindows.dll. You need to make sure all the other DLLs are in the correct places too.

Please follow every single step under "Initial deployment (Quick and dirty)" in the Wiki. If it still doesn't work, please post a screenshot of your deployment folder.

Also, did you create a Debug build or Release build?

[AlterX]

I did...nothing is work or even better, now is running but nothing happens or is shown!!I removed all unecessary dlls and left all plugins content...

[AlterX]

This is really awful...Why didn't they do something like they did for Android??

[JKSH]

They did. It's called windeployqt.

Anyway, your descriptions are vague so it's hard for me to tell what exactly you did. If you want more help, carry out steps #1, #2.1, #2.2, #2.3 and #2.4 of “Initial deployment (Quick and dirty)” and then post your screenshot.

Also post the full error message.

[AlterX]

Hi, sorry, I did now it seems to work...I say seems, because on a virtual machine it is not able to connect over network even if internet is available.
And How does windeployqt work? Is that integrated in QtCreator??

[JKSH]

Glad to hear :)

See http://qt-project.org/doc/qt-5/windows-deployment.html#the-windows-deployment-tool

It's a command line tool, similar to androiddeployqt. I don't know if they integrated androiddeployqt into Qt Creator or not, but windeployqt isn't integrated (yet?).

[AlterX]

Hi thanks...but unfortunately it starts but it is not able to connect to internet (on my machine with qt installed it works).
Do you have any clue?

[JKSH]

[quote author="AlterX" date="1416409664"]Hi thanks...but unfortunately it starts but it is not able to connect to internet (on my machine with qt installed it works).
Do you have any clue?[/quote]You're welcome.

It doesn't sound like a deployment issue anymore. Please start a new thread and include some code that shows how your program tries to connect to the internet. (We can't see what's wrong unless you provide code and details)

[AlterX]

Hi...no it is...now it works!
windeployqt is impressive but useless...it is worse than to do dirty things you suggested; on the other side, dirty doc is not enough, so I did that, then i used windeployqt and copy latter binaries genereted by tool in my manually binaries and now it works!
There are some problems somewhere...