QSystemTrayIcon not showing after using windeployqt tool [duplicate] - c++

Question

This question already has answers here:
QSystemTrayIcon and Windows8
(2 answers)
Closed 3 years ago.
Note: Yes, this question has been asked and answered previously, but the duplicate's answer is incomplete. Please see my solution if you are stuck on this.
Using Qt 5.13.0 MSVC2017 64-bit and Windows 10, I'm experiencing some strange behavior from QSystemTrayIcon. When running in Debug or Release from QtCreator on a fresh build, there are no issues and the icon displays exactly how I would expect it to. However, after using the windeployqt.exe tool, the icon stops showing up.
This happens both when I run it from QtCreator after windeployqt.exe and from the installation directory via Qt Installer Framework. If I delete the build directory, clean, and rebuild, the problem goes away, but obviously this is an issue for deployment.
Command:
windeployqt.exe <RELEASE_DIR>
(also tried specifying the executable directly)
MainWindow constructor:
AltheaWindow::AltheaWindow(MacroListModel &macroListModel, Config *config, const QString &configPath, QWidget *parent)
: QMainWindow(parent),
ui(new Ui::AltheaWindow),
macros(macroListModel),
config(config),
trayIcon(QIcon(IconPath), this),
shortcutNew(ShortcutPtr(new QShortcut(NewMacro, this))),
shortcutSave(ShortcutPtr(new QShortcut(SaveMacro, this))) {
qDebug() << "AltheaWindow";
ui->setupUi(this);
ui->sidebar->createSettingsDialog(config, configPath);
initConnections();
QFile f(IconPath);
bool exists = f.exists();
qDebug() << "exists = " << exists; // "exists = true"
trayIcon.show();
ui->sidebar->setMacros(&macroListModel);
if ((*(*config)[AltheaConfig::StartMinimized]).toBool()) showMinimized();
}
Regardless of whether the icon is shown or not, exists is always true, so it doesn't seem to be an issue of resolving the resource. All other resources in the application work fine as well.

Answer 1

Found the solution, copy imageformats to the plugins directory.
Solution: https://stackoverflow.com/a/20594583/2472874
Additional note:
For anyone experiencing this issue, I found that I also needed to have the imageformats plugin on the Library Paths before the application object is initialized.
#define PLUGINS "plugins"
void preInit(char *argv[]);
int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
#ifndef _DEBUG
preInit(argv);
#endif
Althea app(argc, argv);
AltheaWindow w(app.getMacros(), &app.getConfig(), app.getAppData().absoluteFilePath(Althea::ConfigFileName));
w.show();
return app.exec();
}
void preInit(char *argv[]) {
QDir releaseDir(QFileInfo(argv[0]).dir());
QCoreApplication::addLibraryPath(releaseDir.absoluteFilePath(PLUGINS));
}