FigureCanvasAgg' object has no attribute 'invalidate' ? python plotting

Question

I've been following 'python for data analysis'. On pg. 345, you get to this code to plot returns across a variety of stocks. However, the plotting function does not work for me. I get FigureCanvasAgg' object has no attribute 'invalidate' ?

names = ['AAPL','MSFT', 'DELL', 'MS', 'BAC', 'C'] #goog and SF did not work
def get_px(stock, start, end):
    return web.get_data_yahoo(stock, start, end)['Adj Close']
px = pd.DataFrame({n: get_px(n, '1/1/2009', '6/1/2012') for n in names})

#fillna method pad uses last valid observation to fill
px = px.asfreq('B').fillna(method='pad')
rets = px.pct_change()
df2 = ((1 + rets).cumprod() - 1)

df2.ix[0] = 1

df2.plot()

UPDATE: full traceback

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
AttributeError                            Traceback (most recent call last)
<ipython-input-122-df192c0432be> in <module>()
      6 df2.ix[0] = 1
      7 
----> 8 df2.plot()

//anaconda/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pandas/tools/plotting.pyc in plot_frame(frame, x, y, subplots, sharex, sharey, use_index, figsize, grid, legend, rot, ax, style, title, xlim, ylim, logx, logy, xticks, yticks, kind, sort_columns, fontsize, secondary_y, **kwds)
   1634                      logy=logy, sort_columns=sort_columns,
   1635                      secondary_y=secondary_y, **kwds)
-> 1636     plot_obj.generate()
   1637     plot_obj.draw()
   1638     if subplots:

//anaconda/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pandas/tools/plotting.pyc in generate(self)
    854         self._compute_plot_data()
    855         self._setup_subplots()
--> 856         self._make_plot()
    857         self._post_plot_logic()
    858         self._adorn_subplots()

//anaconda/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pandas/tools/plotting.pyc in _make_plot(self)
   1238         if not self.x_compat and self.use_index and self._use_dynamic_x():
   1239             data = self._maybe_convert_index(self.data)
-> 1240             self._make_ts_plot(data, **self.kwds)
   1241         else:
   1242             lines = []

//anaconda/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pandas/tools/plotting.pyc in _make_ts_plot(self, data, **kwargs)
   1319                 self._maybe_add_color(colors, kwds, style, i)
   1320 
-> 1321                 _plot(data[col], i, ax, label, style, **kwds)
   1322 
   1323         self._make_legend(lines, labels)

//anaconda/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pandas/tools/plotting.pyc in _plot(data, col_num, ax, label, style, **kwds)
   1293         def _plot(data, col_num, ax, label, style, **kwds):
   1294             newlines = tsplot(data, plotf, ax=ax, label=label,
-> 1295                                 style=style, **kwds)
   1296             ax.grid(self.grid)
   1297             lines.append(newlines[0])

//anaconda/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pandas/tseries/plotting.pyc in tsplot(series, plotf, **kwargs)
     79 
     80     # set date formatter, locators and rescale limits
---> 81     format_dateaxis(ax, ax.freq)
     82     left, right = _get_xlim(ax.get_lines())
     83     ax.set_xlim(left, right)

//anaconda/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pandas/tseries/plotting.pyc in format_dateaxis(subplot, freq)
    258     subplot.xaxis.set_major_formatter(majformatter)
    259     subplot.xaxis.set_minor_formatter(minformatter)
--> 260     pylab.draw_if_interactive()

//anaconda/lib/python2.7/site-packages/IPython/utils/decorators.pyc in wrapper(*args, **kw)
     41     def wrapper(*args,**kw):
     42         wrapper.called = False
---> 43         out = func(*args,**kw)
     44         wrapper.called = True
     45         return out

//anaconda/lib/python2.7/site-packages/matplotlib/backends/backend_macosx.pyc in draw_if_interactive()
    227         figManager =  Gcf.get_active()
    228         if figManager is not None:
--> 229             figManager.canvas.invalidate()
    230 
    231 

AttributeError: 'FigureCanvasAgg' object has no attribute 'invalidate'

Answer 1

Not an answer but I can't figure out how to put code block in comments :)

So I got to this question because the exact same thing was happening on my Mac

/Users/briford/myPVE/workbench/lib/python2.7/site-packages/matplotlib/backends/backend_macosx.pyc in draw_if_interactive()
    227         figManager =  Gcf.get_active()
    228         if figManager is not None:
--> 229             figManager.canvas.invalidate()
    230 
AttributeError: 'FigureCanvasAgg' object has no attribute 'invalidate'

Anyway I know it's not satisfying but just doing a shutdown of my ipython notebook service and doing a restart cleared it up... shrug...

Answer 2

I found this error to be due to a combination of:

• using pandas plotting with a series or dataframe member method
• plotting with a date index
• using %matplotlib inline magic in ipython
• importing the pylab module before the matplotlib magic

So the following will fail on a newly started kernel in an ipython notebook:

# fails 
import matplotlib.pylab
%matplotlib inline

import pandas
ser = pandas.Series(range(10), pandas.date_range(end='2014-01-01', periods=10))
ser.plot()

The best way to solve this is to move the magic up to the top:

# succeeds
%matplotlib inline # moved up
import matplotlib.pylab

import pandas
ser = pandas.Series(range(10), pandas.date_range(end='2014-01-01', periods=10))
ser.plot()

However the problem also goes away if you pass the series to a matplotlib plotting method, don't use a date index, or simply don't import the matplotlib.pylab module.

Answer 3

I seemed to resolve the issue (well at least in my case).

I'm running IPython on a mac using python 2.7 and was getting the same error.

It did seem to be an issue with the backend as when I looked at the "dock", quite a few instances of the Python Launcher had been opened (not sure why this happened in the first place though).

Forcing those to close caused the python kernel to restart and has seemed to have fixed my issue.

The inline code is still in place and plots are showing correctly.