[Pythonmac-SIG] StuffIt 10 can corrupt applications packaged with py2app

[Brian Christensen]

I have been distributing a mac application built with py2app.  For  
months I have received reports of users who were not able to use the  
application because of the error "ImportError: No module named os". I  
was not able to reproduce the error and was unable to help them,  
except to suggest they run the application from the source code.

I finally found a user (Michael) who had both the problem and the  
technical skills to track down the cause.

> 		I think I have cracked the 'no module os' problem with GanttPV.app
> 		under 10.4.
>
> 		Assuming that the problem was with the current path, I looked at
> 		site.py. Now I haven't done any python yet, but it is all pretty
> 		readable; what I don't know about is the significance of the .pyc
> 		files - I guess I'll learn. Also, there is an alias in the python >
> 		folder to the site.py file in the Resources folder, but it doesn't
> 		seem to have to work ...
>
> 		Anyway, if you replace the line
> 		sys.path.append(_parent + '/site-packages.zip')
>
> 		with the line
> 		sys.path.append(_parent + '/site-packages')
>
> 		in site.py in the Resources folder of the Contents folder of the
> 		GanttPV.app, GanttPV launching works. In my hands.
>

Following up on this lead we found that there is a problem with  
StuffIt 10. My application was distributed as a zip file so the user  
used StuffIt to unzip the file. It turns out that StuffIt was  
unzipping and deleting the site-packages.zip inside of the application!

> I think we have discovered a bug (? feature?) in Stuffit. I am usng  
> Stuffit 10. It is set to NOT delete after unzipping, and to  
> continue unzipping if possible. If I turn off the latter, the  
> program works after unpacking. When continued unpacking is turned  
> on, the progam deletes the site-packages.zip file, but not the top  
> level zip file.

As a partial work around I am not going to use .zip files to  
distribute my application. However, if anyone zips and then unzips  
the application it will stop working. Has anyone else run into this  
problem?