# Failure of PyPlot backend in Plots

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/failure-of-pyplot-backend-in-plots/9496>\
**Category:** General Usage\
**Created:** [March 5, 2018, 5:47am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/failure-of-pyplot-backend-in-plots/9496 "2018-03-05T05:47:04Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![pegger0709](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/pegger0709/32/1811_2.png) [@pegger0709](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/pegger0709)\
**Post date:** [March 5, 2018, 5:47am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/failure-of-pyplot-backend-in-plots/9496/1 "2018-03-05T05:47:04Z")

</div>

Hello,  
I want to use the pyplot backend to make some 3D scatter plots

```julia
using Plots; pyplot()

```

and I get the following:

```julia
sys:1: UserWarning: 
This call to matplotlib.use() has no effect because the backend has already
been chosen; matplotlib.use() must be called *before* pylab, matplotlib.pyplot,
or matplotlib.backends is imported for the first time.

The backend was *originally* set to u'Qt5Agg' by the following code:
  File "/home/pegger/.julia/v0.6/Conda/deps/usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/matplotlib/backends/ __init__.py", line 14, in <module>
    line for line in traceback.format_stack()

WARNING: No working GUI backend found for matplotlib
WARNING: Couldn't initialize pyplot. (might need to install it?)
INFO: To do a standard install of pyplot, copy and run this:

if !Plots.is_installed("PyPlot")
    Pkg.add("PyPlot")
end
withenv("PYTHON" => "") do
    Pkg.build("PyPlot")
end

```

I followed the instructions and restarted julia and tried again to use the pyplot backend, and I got the same thing.

Has anyone ever experienced this and how did you solve it?

Thanks,

Philip

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ChrisRackauckas](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/chrisrackauckas/32/77_2.png) [@ChrisRackauckas](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/ChrisRackauckas)\
**Post date:** [March 5, 2018, 5:50am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/failure-of-pyplot-backend-in-plots/9496/2 "2018-03-05T05:50:36Z")

</div>

My advice is to just use the GR backend. The Conda install of PyPlot hasn’t worked well for a few months (at least on Linux and Windows). Using the system Python tends to work well though, at least on Linux, so we should probably change that error message.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jlperla](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/jlperla/32/34332_2.png) [@jlperla](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/jlperla)\
**Post date:** [March 5, 2018, 5:52am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/failure-of-pyplot-backend-in-plots/9496/3 "2018-03-05T05:52:14Z")

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If you are on osx, in particular, many of my students had a lot of trouble with pyplot…and gave up eventually