Pycharm - Importing Matplotlib

Question

I've installed Pycharm and using Anaconda 3 as my interpreter. I cannot import Matplotlib (or Seaborn). When I run 'import matplotlib.pyplot as plt' I get the following:--

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

Backend Qt5Agg is interactive backend. Turning interactive mode on.

Traceback (most recent call last):

File "C:\Program Files (x86)\JetBrains\PyCharm Community Edition 2016.2.3\helpers\pydev\pydev_ipython\inputhook.py", line 502, in enable_gui gui_hook = guis[gui] KeyError: 'qt5'

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last): File "C:\Program Files (x86)\JetBrains\PyCharm Community Edition 2016.2.3\helpers\pydev_pydev_bundle\pydev_ipython_console_011.py", line 123, in enable_gui return real_enable_gui(gui, app) File "C:\Program Files (x86)\JetBrains\PyCharm Community Edition 2016.2.3\helpers\pydev\pydev_ipython\inputhook.py", line 508, in enable_gui raise ValueError(e) ValueError: Invalid GUI request 'qt5', valid ones are:dict_keys(['osx', 'gtk', 'qt4', 'qt', 'gtk3', 'glut', 'pyglet', 'wx', 'none', 'tk'])

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last): File "C:\Program Files\Anaconda3\lib\site-packages\IPython\core\interactiveshell.py", line 2881, in run_code exec(code_obj, self.user_global_ns, self.user_ns) File "", line 1, in import matplotlib.pyplot as plt File "C:\Program Files (x86)\JetBrains\PyCharm Community Edition 2016.2.3\helpers\pydev_pydev_bundle\pydev_import_hook.py", line 21, in do_import module = self._system_import(name, *args, **kwargs) File "C:\Program Files\Anaconda3\lib\site-packages\matplotlib\pyplot.py", line 2512, in install_repl_displayhook() File "C:\Program Files\Anaconda3\lib\site-packages\matplotlib\pyplot.py", line 165, in install_repl_displayhook ip.enable_gui(ipython_gui_name) File "C:\Program Files (x86)\JetBrains\PyCharm Community Edition 2016.2.3\helpers\pydev_pydev_bundle\pydev_ipython_console_011.py", line 125, in enable_gui raise UsageError("%s" % e) IPython.core.error.UsageError: Invalid GUI request 'qt5', valid ones are:dict_keys(['osx', 'gtk', 'qt4', 'qt', 'gtk3', 'glut', 'pyglet', 'wx', 'none', 'tk'])

see this stackoverflow.com/questions/4930524/… and use qt4 — eyllanesc

Eskapp Eskapp · Accepted Answer · 2017-07-25T17:10:26

I have just stumbled across the same issue and found a way to solve it easily. I could not make it work with Qt5, so I switched the backend to TkAgg.

First of all, and this is very optional, I updated matplotlib via conda update matplotlib. I did this in order to make sure that I have the backend TkAgg included (however, it has been added in 2014 in conda so...).

Then I changed the backend instruction in the matplotlibrc file that is located in C:\Anaconda3\pkgs\matplotlib-2.0.2-np113py35_0\Lib\site-packages\matplotlib\mpl-data\ if you are using Anaconda3.

Check your version of matplotlib and numpy in Pycharm in Settings -> Project interpreter to make sure that you are modifying the proper file. In my case matplotlib 2.0.2 and numpy 1.13.

Open this matplotlibrc file with an editor and change around line 30 the backend instruction (that is originally Qt5Agg) to TkAgg.

#### CONFIGURATION BEGINS HERE

# The default backend; one of GTK GTKAgg GTKCairo GTK3Agg GTK3Cairo
# MacOSX Qt4Agg Qt5Agg TkAgg WX WXAgg Agg Cairo GDK PS PDF SVG
# Template.
# You can also deploy your own backend outside of matplotlib by
# referring to the module name (which must be in the PYTHONPATH) as
# 'module://my_backend'.
backend      : TkAgg  # HERE!!!

Then save, restart PyCharm and your import matplotlib.pyplot as plt should work. You should see that the backend has changed when it starts as it displays: Backend TkAgg is interactive backend. Turning interactive mode on.

(Works with Python 3.5.2, Anaconda 4.2.0 (64-bit))

(Also works with Python 3.6.2, Anaconda 5.5.0 (64-bits))

Pycharm - Importing Matplotlib

2 Answers