pytesseract PermissionError: [WinError 5] Access is denied in CreateProcess (Windows 10)

Question

Trying to make an OCR program that can extract the text from an image, convert it to bytes, and then have pytesseract convert it to string. I am encountering some permission errors. Here is my code right now. I cannot MRE this code, all of it is important.

import cv2
import pytesseract
import numpy as np

# Set the path to the tesseract executable
pytesseract.pytesseract.tesseract_cmd = "C:\\Users\\hypro\\AppData\\Local\\Programs\\Tesseract-OCR"

img = cv2.imread('C:\\Users\hypro\Downloads\image1.jpg')
#Alternatively: can be skipped if you have a Blackwhite image
gray = cv2.cvtColor(img, cv2.COLOR_RGB2GRAY)
gray, img_bin = cv2.threshold(gray,128,255,cv2.THRESH_BINARY | cv2.THRESH_OTSU)
gray = cv2.bitwise_not(img_bin)
kernel = np.ones((2, 1), np.uint8)
img = cv2.erode(gray, kernel, iterations=1)
img = cv2.dilate(img, kernel, iterations=1)
# Encode the image as a JPEG
_, encoded_image = cv2.imencode('.jpg', img)
print(encoded_image)
# Convert the encoded image to a string
image_bytes = encoded_image.tobytes()
out_below = pytesseract.image_to_string(img)
print("OUTPUT:", out_below)

I tried checking if the directory is correct: it is. I have permission to execute tesseract.exe, and permission to view it. Here is my full traceback:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "c:\Users\hypro\ocr2.py", line 21, in <module>
    out_below = pytesseract.image_to_string(img)
                ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "C:\Users\hypro\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python311\Lib\site-packages\pytesseract\pytesseract.py", line 423, in image_to_string
    return {
           ^
  File "C:\Users\hypro\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python311\Lib\site-packages\pytesseract\pytesseract.py", line 426, in <lambda>  
    Output.STRING: lambda: run_and_get_output(*args),
                           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "C:\Users\hypro\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python311\Lib\site-packages\pytesseract\pytesseract.py", line 288, in run_and_get_output
    run_tesseract(**kwargs)
  File "C:\Users\hypro\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python311\Lib\site-packages\pytesseract\pytesseract.py", line 255, in run_tesseract
    proc = subprocess.Popen(cmd_args, **subprocess_args())
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "C:\Users\hypro\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python311\Lib\subprocess.py", line 1024, in __init__
    self._execute_child(args, executable, preexec_fn, close_fds,
  File "C:\Users\hypro\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python311\Lib\subprocess.py", line 1493, in _execute_child
    hp, ht, pid, tid = _winapi.CreateProcess(executable, args,
                       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
PermissionError: [WinError 5] Access is denied

Answer 1

Can you confirm that you have the correct path to the tesseract executable?

Acording to pytesseract docs , the executable path should be something like C:\Program Files (x86)\Tesseract-OCR\tesseract

In your case, you might need to do

pytesseract.pytesseract.tesseract_cmd = "C:\\Users\\hypro\\AppData\\Local\\Programs\\Tesseract-OCR\\tesseract"