The custom tesserocr-2.5.2 wheel was compiled on a specific machine
against DLL versions that do not match a fresh conda-forge installation.
This caused persistent ImportError: DLL load failed regardless of PATH
or LoadLibraryExW approach.
conda-forge's tesserocr package is compiled against the exact same
conda-forge tesseract/leptonica binaries, so all DLL dependencies
are automatically satisfied within the conda environment — no manual
DLL path manipulation needed.
Changes:
- environment.yml: add tesserocr + tesseract as conda-forge packages,
remove leptonica pin (no longer needed), remove custom wheel from pip
- install.bat: replace wheel force-reinstall with pip uninstall cleanup
- src/*.py: simplify DLL fix to os.add_dll_directory only
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <[email protected]>
Every approach to manually replicating conda's DLL environment from
Python code or batch PATH manipulation has failed. conda run activates
the environment exactly like "conda activate botty" — setting PATH,
running activate.d scripts, and properly resolving all transitive DLL
dependencies for tesseract51.dll.
run_botty.bat now derives conda.exe from the botty python.exe path
(two levels up: envs/botty -> envs -> miniforge3 -> Scripts/conda.exe)
and uses "conda run -n botty --no-capture-output python src/main.py".
install.bat smoke test now uses "%CONDA_EXE% run -n botty python -c ..."
which already has CONDA_EXE set from the install step.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <[email protected]>
os.add_dll_directory alone is not enough — LOAD_LIBRARY_SEARCH_USER_DIRS
does not propagate to transitive deps of deps when loaded automatically
by the OS (e.g. tesseract51.dll's deps like mingw runtimes, leptonica).
LoadLibraryExW with LOAD_LIBRARY_SEARCH_DEFAULT_DIRS (0x1000) explicitly
propagates user DLL dir search to the entire transitive dep chain, so
leptonica, libgcc, libstdc++, zlib etc. are all found in Library\bin
and Library\mingw-w64\bin without conda activate.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <[email protected]>
ctypes.WinDLL uses LoadLibraryW which does NOT search user DLL dirs
registered via os.add_dll_directory/AddDllDirectory. It was throwing
FileNotFoundError and blocking the import before tesserocr was ever tried.
Python 3.8+ loads .pyd files with LOAD_LIBRARY_SEARCH_USER_DIRS which
DOES search user-registered dirs for the pyd and all its transitive DLL
dependencies. os.add_dll_directory(Library\bin) alone is sufficient.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <[email protected]>
os.environ['PATH'] set from inside Python does not affect the Windows
DLL loader used by ctypes.WinDLL — the loader reads the process PATH
at load time, not from Python's env dict. Set PATH in the .bat files
before python.exe is launched so tesseract51.dll's transitive deps
(leptonica, zlib, libpng, etc.) are findable by the loader.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <[email protected]>
When ctypes.WinDLL loads tesseract51.dll by absolute path, Windows
resolves that DLL's own transitive deps using the standard search order:
app-dir → System32 → Windows → cwd → PATH. Library\bin is in none of
those (conda activate was not run), so leptonica, zlib, libpng, etc.
are invisible and the load fails even though the DLLs are all present.
Fix: prepend all conda DLL dirs to os.environ['PATH'] before the
ctypes.WinDLL call so the standard DLL search finds them. os.add_dll_directory
is still called for Python's LOAD_LIBRARY_SEARCH_USER_DIRS path.
Together the three steps guarantee the import works without conda activate:
1. os.add_dll_directory - for .pyd loading
2. os.environ PATH - for ctypes transitive dep resolution
3. ctypes.WinDLL(abs) - pre-cache tesseract so .pyd reuses it
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <[email protected]>
os.add_dll_directory alone is not enough on Windows. When Python loads
the tesserocr .pyd via LOAD_LIBRARY_SEARCH_USER_DIRS, Windows finds
tesseract51.dll in the added directory but then resolves tesseract's own
transitive deps (leptonica, zlib, libpng etc.) using only the standard
system search path -- not the user DLL dirs. Those libs live in
Library\bin, not System32, so they're invisible and the load fails even
though every DLL is present.
Fix: call ctypes.WinDLL(absolute_path_to_tesseract51.dll) before the
tesserocr import. LoadLibraryW with a full path anchors tesseract51.dll
to Library\bin, so Windows searches that directory for its transitive
deps. The already-loaded DLL is then returned from cache when the .pyd
requests it, making the import succeed.
Applied to ocr.py (test entry point), main.py, and shopper.py.
Also updated install.bat smoke test and diagnostic to use the same fix.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <[email protected]>
The custom tesserocr wheel links against leptonica-1.78.0.dll at
compile time. Unpinned leptonica on conda-forge resolves to 1.82+
which installs leptonica-1.82.0.dll — a different filename — so
Windows DLL loader cannot find it regardless of os.add_dll_directory.
Also force-reinstall the wheel in install.bat to guarantee the
correct binary is used (not a stale cached version), and add a
diagnostic that prints which DLLs are actually present when the
smoke test fails so the root cause is visible instead of a vague
warning.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <[email protected]>
- README: add step-by-step Installation section (Miniforge → download
ZIP → install.bat → config → run_botty.bat) so a non-technical user
can follow it without reading development.md
- config/params.ini: reset personal fields (name, char_name,
saved_games_folder) to generic defaults so the downloaded zip
works out of the box for anyone
- install.bat: apply os.add_dll_directory before the tesserocr smoke
test so it stops emitting a false warning on every install
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <[email protected]>
install.bat:
- Add conda self-test (conda --version) before env create
- Verify botty python.exe exists after env creation
- Smoke-test key imports (cv2, tesserocr, discord, etc.)
CI (.github/workflows/ci.yml):
- Add test_setup_bat_files.py to test matrix
test/test_setup_bat_files.py (7 tests):
- All expected .bat files exist
- No hardcoded usernames (alex, alexpolo, ultimate) in run scripts
- No absolute home paths in run scripts (must use %~dp0 / %USERNAME%)
- All run_*.bat source find_python.bat (no duplicated conda detection)
- find_python.bat checks >= 6 conda locations
- install.bat has conda self-test and python verification
Without cd /d "%~dp0", conda resolves environment.yml relative to
wherever the user launched the bat from (e.g. C:\Windows\system32).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <[email protected]>
alex