ImportError: cannot import name cbook

Question

>>> import matplotlib
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File \"\", line 1, in 
  File \"/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages         


        

Answer 1

just sharing my experience, I was trying to run Python code (2.7) making use of matplotlib. The code is running inside a docker container based on a Debian 10 image.

In the end I based the solution on the answers here, but there was a small caveat. I had to do the actions in the following order:

1. Install the rest of the requirements
2. Install matplotlib (no need to specify a version in my case, 2.2.5 was installed by pip)
3. Install arrow
4. Uninstall backports.functools_lru_cache
5. Install backports.functools_lru_cache version 1.2.1

The code on the dockerfile is as it follows:

RUN pip2 install -r requirements.txt
RUN pip2 install matplotlib
RUN pip2 install arrow
RUN pip2 uninstall -y backports.functools_lru_cache
RUN pip2 install backports.functools_lru_cache==1.2.1

You can find the whole project on github: https://github.com/n3if/irassh.git

Answer 2

My experience is to be careful about the version of matplotlib. Today the latest version is 3.3 and has this issue. So I specify the previous version that worked for me:

pip install matplotlib==3.2.2

Answer 3

I hit this issue today due to a bad dependency.

If you have both backports.shutil_get_terminal_size and backports.functools_lru_cache installed, you can encounter this.

Matplotlib has a brittle workaround for a cyclic import:

# cbook must import matplotlib only within function
# definitions, so it is safe to import from it here.
from . import cbook

Until PR #10483, matplotlib dependended on backports.functools_lru_cache.

However, ipython depends on backports.shutil_get_terminal_size, and that package doesn't set up a namespace package properly.

If you have this problem, you'll see these symptoms:

>>> import backports
<module 'backports.shutil_get_terminal_size' from '/Users/whughes/miniconda2/envs/scratch/lib/python2.7/site-packages/backports/shutil_get_terminal_size/__init__.pyc'>
>>> >import backports.functools_lru_cache
ImportError: No module named functools_lru_cache

The problem with backports.shutil_get_terminal_size is that it doesn't define a namespace package, so it breaks any other backports.foo packages.

Reinstalling matplotlib fixes this because it changes the order in sys.path, putting backports.functools_lru_cache first, and that package defines a proper namespace.

You can also fix this by reinstalling backports.shutil_get_terminal_size.

Answer 4

I solve the problem uninstalling matplotpli and reinstalling without pip:

$ sudo apt-get install python-matplotlib

Thanks to this README.html.

Answer 5

1. Try to update matplotlib

python -m pip install -U matplotlib

2. Try to reinstall matplotlib

python -m pip uninstall matplotlib
python -m pip install -U matplotlib

What does the following snippet print to the console?

python -c "import matplotlib"