_tkinter.TclError: image "pyimage1" doesn't exist

Question

Why is my Tkinter image not working? It is in the same directory, all commands are right but I get the error:

_tkinter.TclError: image "pyimage1" doesn't exist.

What's wrong?

fertig=tkinter.Tk()
fertig.title("Window")
text=tkinter.Label(fertig,text="Success")
text.pack()
w = tkinter.PhotoImage(file="/Users/Hannes/Desktop/Spambot/successful.gif ")
w = tkinter.label(fertig,image=w)
w.pack()
knapp=tkinter.Button(fertig,text="Ok",command=lambda:close())
knapp.pack()
knapp.mainloop()

Answer 1

The following works for me on my Windows system. I had to fix and add a few (unrelated) things to get the code in your question to work, but after doing so I found the real reason the image doesn't display.

So, the error that relates most directly to the that problem is because you're overwriting the variable w: After you assign a tkinter.PhotoImage() value to it, you immediately assign a another value (the tkinter.Label) to using its current value (image=w). The second assignment causes the tkinter.PhotoImage() object that was in it to be lost. Since there are no more references to to, it will be garbage-collected at some point.

To fix that, I simply assign the PhotoImage object to a separate variable img.

Note, too, that (apparently) having the trailing space character in the filename isn't a problem (at least not on Windows).

Here's some "official" documentation specifically about the PhotoImage class that discusses the need for keeping a reference around to the original—see the NOTE: at the end—when using it with other tkinter widgets (like a Label).

import tkinter

def close():  # just a placeholder implementation.
    print('close() called')

fertig=tkinter.Tk()
fertig.title("Window")
text=tkinter.Label(fertig, text="Success")
text.pack()
#w = tkinter.PhotoImage(file="/Users/Hannes/Desktop/Spambot/successful.gif ")
img = tkinter.PhotoImage(file=r"C:\vols\Files\PythonLib\Stack Overflow\successful.gif ")
w = tkinter.Label(fertig, image=img)
w.pack()
knapp=tkinter.Button(fertig, text="Ok", command=lambda: close())
knapp.pack()
knapp.mainloop()

Here's what it looks like (using an image of my own).