ValueError: Axes instance argument was not found in a figure.

I’m trying to plot this basic DataFrame with a FacitGrid and running into this value error. Windows 7 x64, Python 2.7

print sns.__version__ 0.3.1
print pd.__version__ 0.13.1
print np.__version__ 1.7.1
print matplotlib.__version__ 1.3.0

import numpy as np
import pandas as pd
import seaborn as sns
from scipy import stats
import matplotlib as mpl
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

In [2]:

sns.set(style="white")

np.random.seed(sum(map(ord, "axis_grids")))

In [3]:

df = pd.DataFrame({'A' : ['foo', 'bar', 'foo', 'bar', 'foo', 'bar', 'foo', 'foo'],

                 'B' : ['one', 'one', 'two', 'three', 'two', 'two', 'one', 'three'],

                 'C' : randn(8), 'D' : randn(8)})

In [4]:

df

Out[4]:
    A   B   C   D
0   foo     one     0.805998    1.520340
1   bar     one     -1.519987   -1.845697
2   foo     two     -1.209843   -0.110755
3   bar     three   0.033920    0.569092
4   foo     two     0.138512    -0.341390
5   bar     two     -1.945447   -0.505211
6   foo     one     -0.933446   -0.161730
7   foo     three   0.815080    -0.755682

8 rows × 4 columns
In [5]:

g = sns.FacetGrid(df, col='A', row='B')

In [6]:

g.map(plt.scatter, 'C', 'D')

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ValueError                                Traceback (most recent call last)
<ipython-input-6-b16344b8ad2e> in <module>()
----> 1 g.map(plt.scatter, 'C', 'D')

D:\Python27\lib\site-packages\seaborn-0.3.1-py2.7.egg\seaborn\axisgrid.pyc in map(self, func, *args, **kwargs)
    291 
    292             # Get the current axis
--> 293             ax = self.facet_axis(row_i, col_j)
    294 
    295             # Decide what color to plot with

D:\Python27\lib\site-packages\seaborn-0.3.1-py2.7.egg\seaborn\axisgrid.pyc in facet_axis(self, row_i, col_j)
    415 
    416         # Get a reference to the axes object we want, and make it active
--> 417         plt.sca(ax)
    418         return ax
    419 

D:\Python27\lib\site-packages\matplotlib\pyplot.pyc in sca(ax)
    780             m.canvas.figure.sca(ax)
    781             return
--> 782     raise ValueError("Axes instance argument was not found in a figure.")
    783 
    784 

ValueError: Axes instance argument was not found in a figure.

[mwaskom]

It sounds like for the backend you’re using you’ll need to keep the call to the FacetGrid constructor and the call to g.map() in the same In cell/line.

[cbr-analytics]

@mwaskom , Thanks, this helped in 2018! @mwaskom