Pip install matplotlib fails on M1 Mac

Question

I'm having difficulties installing matplotlib through pip on my M1 Mac. I have Python 3.9.1 installed through Homebrew.

When running pip3 install matplotlib the installer tries installing the newest version, matplotlib 3.3.4. The installer gets stuck and prints a huge error message after some time. After this it tries installing version 3.3.3 after which the same happens again, and so on. What goes wrong?

Here is some of the error message:

    william@Williams-MacBook-Pro ~ % pip3 install matplotlib
Collecting matplotlib
  Using cached matplotlib-3.3.4.tar.gz (37.9 MB)
    ERROR: Command errored out with exit status 1:
     command: /opt/homebrew/opt/[email protected]/bin/python3.9 -c 'import sys, setuptools, tokenize; sys.argv[0] = '"'"'/private/var/folders/yb/rgjfc7ws25ddwd07x96f4fmw0000gn/T/pip-install-h7oltt2f/matplotlib_1ad1e28a38b14b40ae2bcaa7f9b01cab/setup.py'"'"'; __file__='"'"'/private/var/folders/yb/rgjfc7ws25ddwd07x96f4fmw0000gn/T/pip-install-h7oltt2f/matplotlib_1ad1e28a38b14b40ae2bcaa7f9b01cab/setup.py'"'"';f=getattr(tokenize, '"'"'open'"'"', open)(__file__);code=f.read().replace('"'"'\r\n'"'"', '"'"'\n'"'"');f.close();exec(compile(code, __file__, '"'"'exec'"'"'))' egg_info --egg-base /private/var/folders/yb/rgjfc7ws25ddwd07x96f4fmw0000gn/T/pip-pip-egg-info-0jjax4jc
         cwd: /private/var/folders/yb/rgjfc7ws25ddwd07x96f4fmw0000gn/T/pip-install-h7oltt2f/matplotlib_1ad1e28a38b14b40ae2bcaa7f9b01cab/
    Complete output (2287 lines):
      ERROR: Command errored out with exit status 1:
       command: /opt/homebrew/opt/[email protected]/bin/python3.9 /opt/homebrew/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pip/_vendor/pep517/_in_process.py build_wheel /var/folders/yb/rgjfc7ws25ddwd07x96f4fmw0000gn/T/tmp3p0is_vc
           cwd: /private/var/folders/yb/rgjfc7ws25ddwd07x96f4fmw0000gn/T/pip-wheel-5rqmhbah/numpy_cefeff1e3acc4faea4c06d0f4597b2da

Answer 1

python3 -m pip install cython   
python3 -m pip install --no-binary :all: --no-use-pep517 numpy
brew install libjpeg
python3 -m pip install matplotlib

Worked for me, at this time it installed numpy 1.20.1.

Same Python version (3.9.1) from Homebrew.

Answer 2

1. Install Miniforge for arm64 (Apple Silicon)latest installer here: installer here

2. Now create a conda environment for whatever version you have (I'm running 3.9.2)

conda create -n cenv python=3.9.2
conda activate cenv
conda install matplotlib

You will drive yourself nuts trying to get all the different packages working if you try to go from wheels/pip, at time of writing.