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Dear Stackoverflow community,

I am struggling with running a python script that executes a PyQt5 GUI on desktop startup of Raspberry Pi 3B with Raspbian Jessie.

What do I have so far?

Information that may help:

Thank you in advance for any help.

RaspiManu

UPDATE:

I solved my Problem with a lot of testing and posted an answer for other users.

After a lot of testing, I figured it out myself. Here's how it worked for me...

Create autorun-file:

2.1 LXTerminal: cd /home/pi/.config/autostart

2.2 LXTerminal: sudo nano pythonscript.desktop

2.3 pythonscript.desktop:

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Name=YourName
Comment=Your comment
Exec=/home/pi/pythonscript.py -nograb #-nograb for comboBox on touch Screen
Icon=/usr/share/pixmaps/python.xpm
Path=/home/pi/
Terminal=false
StartupNotify=true
Type=Application
Categories=Utility;Application;
2.4 Ctrl+O, Ctrl+X, sudo reboot
Good to know:
It is important, that you can't use just any path to your script. The script has to be directly in the /home/pi/ directory, so you would use Exec=/home/pi/pythonscript.py in the autorun-file (.desktop). I also learned, that if your script loads for example an image with PIL, this image has to be somewhere else, maybe on your desktop, because it can't be opened out of the /home/pi/ directory.
If your GUI has a comboBox and you are using a touch screen, the comboBox might make your whole GUI unuseable after you touched it. Using Exec=/home/pi/pythonscript.py -nograb solves this problem.
StartupNotify=true is important for starting GUI scripts.
Hope this helps,
RaspiManu
                I am following your answer and able to run pyqt5 application on startup. But its not loading the images. My project directory is inside /home/pi/Documents/Project which contains all the images. Do I need to move my project to /hom/pi/ as per your suggestion
– S Andrew
                Jul 19, 2020 at 6:12
                Dear @SAndrew, this is a long time ago and I'm not completely sure. It's nice that your script runs on startup. When I did my GUI project, my script was located in /home/pi/ directory. The python code of this script opened pictures out of a folder on my desktop (Raspbian Stretch). Maybe you could try loading pictures from a desktop folder, too. If this works, you have a reference and you can experiment with other location options that might work. I really hope, this helps you out. Good luck :)
– RaspiManu
                Jul 24, 2020 at 9:19
                What am I doing wrong? cd /home/pi/.config/autostart  gave me this error:  -bash: cd: /home/pi/.config/autostart: No such file or directory
– Phönix 64
                Jul 14, 2021 at 22:34
                Dear @Phönix64, this error means, that your system does not have that folder. The path to the autostart folder might have changed since 2018. As you can see in my original post, I worked with Raspbian Jessie which is outdated now. The system even had a whole name change from Raspbian to Raspberry Pi OS. I recommend you to do some research on the new location of the folder and try it again. Good luck with your project :)
– RaspiManu
                Jul 18, 2021 at 9:29
                Jup thank you though that it was some kind of configuration step I missed but turns out that they completely changed the service structure. Now It works
– Phönix 64
                Jul 18, 2021 at 10:12
You can make a background service that runs on startup, by following this link
Service method
and By appending this line 
service yourdaemon start
in /etc/rc.local 
assuming your service name is 'yourdaemon'
Caution: Use the root previleges
Example service file
#! /bin/sh
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides:          yourdaemon
# Required-Start:    $remote_fs $syslog
# Required-Stop:     $remote_fs $syslog
# Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop:      0 1 6
# Short-Description: Your Daemon
# Description:       Your Daemon
### END INIT INFO
# PATH should only include /usr/* if it runs after the mountnfs.sh script
PATH=/sbin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/usr/bin
DESC="Your Daemon"
NAME=yourdaemon
DAEMON=/hannext/yourdaemon.py  # Path to your python file
PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
SCRIPTNAME=/etc/init.d/$NAME
LOGFILE=/var/log/snc/$NAME.log
. /lib/lsb/init-functions
do_start()
        echo "$(date +%F) $(date +%T) DAEMON   : Starting $DESC service" >> $LOGFILE
        start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --oknodo --pidfile $PIDFILE --startas $DAEMON --make-pidfile --background
do_stop()
        echo "$(date +%F) $(date +%T) DAEMON   : Stopping $DESC service" >> $LOGFILE
        start-stop-daemon --stop $DAEMON --quiet --oknodo --pidfile $PIDFILE
        rm -f $PIDFILE
# Function that sends a SIGHUP to the daemon/service
do_reload() {
        # If the daemon can reload its configuration without
        # restarting (for example, when it is sent a SIGHUP),
        # then implement that here.
        start-stop-daemon --stop --signal 1 --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE --name $NAME
        return 0
case "$1" in
  start)
        [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME"
        do_start
        case "$?" in
                0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
                2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
  stop)
        [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME"
        do_stop
        case "$?" in
                0|1) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 0 ;;
                2) [ "$VERBOSE" != no ] && log_end_msg 1 ;;
  status)
        status_of_proc "$DAEMON" "$NAME" && exit 0 || exit $?
  #reload|force-reload)
        # If do_reload() is not implemented then leave this commented out
        # and leave 'force-reload' as an alias for 'restart'.
        #log_daemon_msg "Reloading $DESC" "$NAME"
        #do_reload
        #log_end_msg $?
  restart|force-reload)
        # If the "reload" option is implemented then remove the
        # 'force-reload' alias
        log_daemon_msg "Restarting $DESC" "$NAME"
        do_stop
        case "$?" in
                do_start
                case "$?" in
                        0) log_end_msg 0 ;;
                        1) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Old process is still running
                        *) log_end_msg 1 ;; # Failed to start
                # Failed to stop
                log_end_msg 1
        #echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|restart|reload|force-reload}" >&2
        echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|status|restart|force-reload}" >&2
        exit 3
save it by the name of 'yourdaemon' in /etc/init.d/ and make it executable using 
chmod +x yourdaemon
                Thank you very much for your answer and please excuse my question... I am very new to this and have never worked with daemons. I understand, that you can use the skeleton file in /etc/init.d for building one, but I looked into some other daemons like sudo or reboot and they seem to be written in C++ or C# which I am not able to use. Could you please explain the step of creating the daemon a bit more? And how do I use the root previleges?
– RaspiManu
                May 16, 2018 at 12:13
                You absolutely made my day for helping me this much. Thank you! I am not at work anymore, but I will definitely try it tomorrow and tell you about it.
– RaspiManu
                May 16, 2018 at 15:00
                Should $NAME stay as it is and use NAME=yourdemon, if this works like this, or do I have to change something more than yourdemon and the path to my .py file?
– RaspiManu
                May 16, 2018 at 15:08
                it is the name of the service so you should name it accordingly. Please mark it as correct if you find it helpful , after your testing.
– Axecalever
                May 16, 2018 at 15:11
        
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