Fixing Tkinter Button Images Disappearing After colorchooser.askcolor: Keep PhotoImage Referenced

Troubleshooting Tkinter: why a Button PhotoImage disappears after colorchooser.askcolor and how to fix it by keeping a persistent image reference. Learn more.

When wiring a Tkinter button to open colorchooser.askcolor, many developers replace the button’s text with an image for a cleaner UI. The surprise comes right after the first dialog: the image disappears and the button stops working. With a text-only button everything behaves normally. The root cause is subtle but simple, and the fix is even simpler.

Reproducing the issue

The behavior shows up when the PhotoImage object is created as a short‑lived local variable. After invoking an external window like the color chooser, the image reference vanishes and the widget no longer has a valid image to display.

import tkinter as tk
from tkinter import colorchooser

class AppShell(tk.Tk):
    def __init__(self):
        super().__init__()
        img_file = r'add.png'
        icon_img = tk.PhotoImage(file=img_file)
        tk.Button(self, image=icon_img, command=self.choose_color).pack(pady=20)

    def choose_color(self):
        picked = colorchooser.askcolor(title='Select Color')
        return

if __name__ == "__main__":
    ui = AppShell()
    ui.mainloop()

What’s really happening

In Tkinter, image objects such as PhotoImage must remain referenced for as long as they are displayed. If the only reference lives in a local scope, that object can be collected once the scope ends or after certain GUI actions. Opening an external window like a color chooser, a file dialog, or a message box can expose this and leave the button with a missing image, effectively rendering it nonfunctional. A text label on the same button is immune to this because it is not subject to the same lifetime rules as a PhotoImage.

The fix

Keep a persistent reference to the PhotoImage. The most straightforward approach is to store it on a long-lived object, such as the window instance. By switching from a local name to an instance attribute, the image remains alive for as long as the UI exists and the button continues to work after dialogs.

import tkinter as tk
from tkinter import colorchooser

class AppShell(tk.Tk):
    def __init__(self):
        super().__init__()
        img_file = r'add.png'
        self.icon_img = tk.PhotoImage(file=img_file)
        tk.Button(self, image=self.icon_img, command=self.choose_color).pack(pady=20)

    def choose_color(self):
        picked = colorchooser.askcolor(title='Select Color')
        return

if __name__ == "__main__":
    ui = AppShell()
    ui.mainloop()

The core idea is to ensure the PhotoImage outlives the widget that uses it. An alternative pattern is attaching the image to a widget attribute, which also prevents it from being garbage collected.

Why this matters

This quirk affects more than the color chooser. Any additional window created during runtime can trigger the same failure, so dialogs that look unrelated can still cause images to disappear. Understanding that image lifetime is tied to object references helps avoid intermittent, platform-specific headaches and keeps image-based widgets stable.

Takeaways

When using PhotoImage in Tkinter, avoid local-only references for images that must persist. Keep a reference on a persistent object, for example as an instance attribute, so that opening color chooser or other dialogs does not invalidate the image. With that single change, the button image remains visible and functional throughout the application’s lifetime.