App created with PyInstaller has a slow startup

Question

I have an application written in Python and \'compiled\' with PyInstaller. It also uses PyQt for the GUI framework.

Running this application has a delay of about 10

Answer 1

For my application, the long startup time almost entirely was caused by the antivirus system. Switching it off reduced the startup in my case from 3 minutes to less than 10secs!

To bring these measurements into perspective: My application was bundled with extra data files (about 150 files with a payload of 250MB), besides carrying around Qt and numpy (that may depend on Intel MKL, which alone adds another 200MB to the bundle!) dependencies. It even didn't help much that the tested system was running with a solid state drive...

In conclusion: if you have a large application with lots of dependencies, the startup time may be affected strongly by the antivirus system!