Pyinstaller not working with Panda3D – 'direct' module not found

I’m working through some Panda3D tutorials and have created a few simple programs. At some point in the near future, I would like to be able to bundle my Panda3D program into a standalone application using PyInstaller.

However, I’m experiencing a strange issue even with the simplest program.

I’ve used the command pyinstaller -F -c -w 01 – blank window.py.

It works as normal and creates a Unix executable and a macOS .app file in the dist folder. However, neither of them work, they just open and close immediately. After some research, I found the source of the problem.

When I run either executable from Terminal, I get this error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "01 – blank window.py", line 1, in <module>
    from direct.showbase.ShowBase import ShowBase
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'direct'
[29403] Failed to execute script 01 – blank window

I don’t know why this error is occurring, given that my programs work perfectly fine when using python3 01 – blank window.py or running straight from VS Code.

How can I fix the above error?

Specs:

macOS 10.14.6 (Mojave)

My system has Python 2.7 (comes with macOS) and Python 3.7. I always use Python 3.7. Though I’m not sure what version of Python I’m using with Panda3D, since the SDK comes with its own version.

Panda3D 1.10.4.1

The direct module is at /Developer/Panda3D/direct and my PATH is /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/bin://anaconda3/condabin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/Users/akaash_home/Library/Python/3.7/bin:/Developer/Panda3D/bin

Also, I wonder if it makes a difference that I’m running these files off an external hard drive and I’m using PyInstaller to put the app on the same drive.

EDIT:

I’ve also tried adding the option --hidden-import=direct but it makes no difference.