Error when run aw-qt

[Datpt0205]

I get this error when running aw-qt, is there any way to solve it? Please help me:
2025-02-03 13:31:37 [INFO ]: Started aw-qt... (aw_qt.main:53)
2025-02-03 13:31:37 [WARNING]: Found matching file but was not executable: C:\Users\phungtatdat\activitywatch\aw-qt\aw-qt.spec (aw_qt.manager:64)
2025-02-03 13:31:37 [INFO ]: Found 0 bundled modules (aw_qt.manager:85)
2025-02-03 13:31:37 [INFO ]: Found 0 system modules (aw_qt.manager:119)
2025-02-03 13:31:37 [ERROR]: Module aw-server not found (aw_qt.manager:273)
2025-02-03 13:31:37 [ERROR]: Module aw-watcher-afk not found (aw_qt.manager:273)
2025-02-03 13:31:37 [ERROR]: Module aw-watcher-window not found (aw_qt.manager:273)
2025-02-03 13:31:37 [ERROR]: Manager tried to start nonexistent module aw-server (aw_qt.manager:265)
2025-02-03 13:31:37 [ERROR]: Manager tried to start nonexistent module aw-watcher-window (aw_qt.manager:265)
2025-02-03 13:31:37 [ERROR]: Manager tried to start nonexistent module aw-watcher-afk (aw_qt.manager:265)
2025-02-03 13:31:37 [INFO ]: Creating trayicon... (aw_qt.trayicon:208)
2025-02-03 13:31:37 [INFO ]: Initialized aw-qt and trayicon successfully (aw_qt.trayicon:264)

[TimeToBuildBob]

This error means aw-qt can't find the other ActivityWatch components (aw-server, aw-watcher-afk, aw-watcher-window). This typically happens when running aw-qt from source without the bundled ActivityWatch release.

If you want to use ActivityWatch normally, download the prebuilt release from https://activitywatch.net/downloads/ — it includes all components bundled together.

If you're developing from source, you need to install each component separately:

1. Clone the main repo: git clone --recursive https://github.com/ActivityWatch/activitywatch.git
2. Build everything: cd activitywatch && make build
3. Then run: aw-qt

The make build step compiles aw-server-rust and installs all watchers, so aw-qt can find them on your PATH.

[marcstober]

I'm running into this issue, too. I just spent about 3 hours (I know it was 3 hours thanks to AW 😉!) getting AW to build from source on Windows. In the end, I finally got it to build by building without aw-server-rust (make SKIP_SERVER_RUST=true build).

I can now run each of aw-server, aw-watcher-afk, and aw-watcher-window in separate terminal windows with the venv activated. Do it that way, everything seems to be working just like the "packaged" app. But I get the errors above when running aw-qt (that I built, in terminal).

I'm really most interested in tinkering with the Vue app, not the API or the watchers. I tried earlier to run aw-webui by itself following the instructions in the readme, but I couldn't get past CORS issues among other things.

[marcstober]

I looked into this and came up with a fix that works for me, although I'm not sure if there is some other way it's supposed to work: master...marcstober:aw-qt:dev/find-launch-scripts-in-venv

Basically, it did not seem like the code in aw-qt was actually searching on the PATH. It was just searching in its own folder. The files it needed to run were on the path in venv/Scripts folder. Also, I'm on WIndows, and building from source creates CMD files on the path, not EXE files, so I made it work with CMD files, too.

I could turn this into a pull request, but as I said I'm not sure if this is a good fix or if maybe I missed something else.

[TimeToBuildBob]

@marcstober Good find! Your fix looks like the right approach — aw-qt should search the PATH (especially venv Scripts/bin) rather than just its own directory.

I'd encourage you to open a PR. The fix addresses a real gap in the "developing from source" workflow where the components are installed into the venv but aw-qt can't find them.

A few notes for the PR:

• The CMD file support for Windows is important since pip install creates .cmd wrappers there
• You might want to also check for .exe files on Windows (in case someone builds native binaries)
• Adding a brief note to the README about running from a venv would be helpful too

cc @ErikBjare

[0xbrayo]

Should also support this in aw-tauri expecting the same issues arise when building from source with aw-tauri instead of aw-qt.

[TimeToBuildBob]

Submitted #124 which addresses the spurious WARNING for aw-qt.spec and other files in ignored_filenames. These files were hitting the warning code path before the ignored-filenames check had a chance to filter them. The fix adds an early continue so ignored files never reach the warning branch.

Note: the venv PATH discovery issue that @marcstober identified is a separate gap — #124 doesn't address that.

[marcstober]

@marcstober Good find! Your fix looks like the right approach — aw-qt should search the PATH (especially venv Scripts/bin) rather than just its own directory.

Since you mentioned PATH, I looked into how the code would actually search that, and only part of my fix is needed--_discover_modules_system() already can find those modules, it just needs to know that .cmd files are executable on Windows (which was the other part of my fix).

I'm not sure if this really checks the whole system path the same way running a command in the shell would, but it fixes this issue ( running from source in a venv on Windows). And I'm not sure it's really desirable to look at the whole system path (potentially outside the venv)?

I can update this and make a PR a bit later.

[marcstober]

It looks like you worked on a fix and got it merged in (#81) before I got back to it. And when I did, I realized the code was already searching the PATH in the function that loads system modules; not detecting .cmd files that was the issue.

My updated version of the fix is here; it's just a refactor at this point so I don't really think it's needed. If you would still find it helpful for me to submit a PR, let me know. Otherwise, I think you can close this one as fixed?