`import plotly` fails with `KeyError: 'metaKeys'`

Right now, import plotly fails.

In [1]: import plotly
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
KeyError                                  Traceback (most recent call last)
<ipython-input-1-c27a4132ad2e> in <module>()
----> 1 import plotly

/Users/chriddyp/Repos/venvpy27/lib/python2.7/site-packages/plotly/__init__.py in <module>()
     29 from __future__ import absolute_import
     30
---> 31 from plotly import (plotly, graph_objs, grid_objs, tools, utils, session,
     32                     offline)
     33 from plotly.version import __version__

/Users/chriddyp/Repos/venvpy27/lib/python2.7/site-packages/plotly/plotly/__init__.py in <module>()
      8
      9 """
---> 10 from . plotly import (
     11     sign_in,
     12     update_plot_options,

/Users/chriddyp/Repos/venvpy27/lib/python2.7/site-packages/plotly/plotly/plotly.py in <module>()
     29 from requests.auth import HTTPBasicAuth
     30
---> 31 from plotly import exceptions, tools, utils, version, files
     32 from plotly.plotly import chunked_requests
     33 from plotly.session import (sign_in, update_session_plot_options,

/Users/chriddyp/Repos/venvpy27/lib/python2.7/site-packages/plotly/tools.py in <module>()
     18 from plotly import utils
     19 from plotly import exceptions
---> 20 from plotly import graph_reference
     21 from plotly import session
     22 from plotly.files import (CONFIG_FILE, CREDENTIALS_FILE, FILE_CONTENT,

/Users/chriddyp/Repos/venvpy27/lib/python2.7/site-packages/plotly/graph_reference.py in <module>()
    521 TRACE_NAMES = list(GRAPH_REFERENCE['traces'].keys())
    522
--> 523 OBJECTS = _get_objects()
    524 _patch_objects()
    525 ARRAYS = _get_arrays()

/Users/chriddyp/Repos/venvpy27/lib/python2.7/site-packages/plotly/graph_reference.py in _get_objects()
    404     for node, path in utils.node_generator(GRAPH_REFERENCE):
    405
--> 406         if any([key in path for key in GRAPH_REFERENCE['defs']['metaKeys']]):
    407             continue  # objects don't exist under nested meta keys
    408         if node.get('role') != 'object':

KeyError: 'metaKeys'

Several pages on the API are failing intermittently right now with a 504 and so I suspect that this URL https://api.plot.ly/v2/plot-schema.json?sha1=%22%22 is failing with like a 504 behind the scenes too.

[chriddyp]

Thanks for reporting @fchevitarese! We are working on a fix right now

[chriddyp]

@jlmcgehee21 100% agreed. Here’s a recap of what happened here:

• import plotly downloads the latest plot-schema.json. The plot-schema.json contains all of the information about the available keys and chart types in plotly.graph_objs. This means that as new features are added to plotly.js, the python library automatically gets those updates.
• Today, a typo caused plot-schmea.json to be malformed. Note that the API call technically “worked” (a 200 was returned) but the format of the plot-schema.json wasn’t right. Had the API call failed, the python library would have just used the cached version.
• The typo in plot-schema.json caused a typo while creating the graph_objs. This caused import plotly to fail.

This library has fail-safes around the actual API calls - There is a 5 second timeout and a cached version of the plot-schema.json that gets included in the library: https://github.com/plotly/plotly.py/blob/master/plotly/graph_reference.py#L91-L107

but no fail safes around creating the graph_objs based off of that plot-schema: https://github.com/plotly/plotly.py/blob/master/plotly/graph_reference.py#L517-L532.

To make sure that this never happens again, we should either:

• Extend the try / except around the construction of graph_objs off of the downloaded plot-schema.json and use the cached version if possible.
• Remove the auto-downloading plot-schema on import and perform more frequent (weekly) releases of the python library in sync with the plotly.js version updates.