Matplotlib plot window unresponsive when shown through spyder

Issue Report Checklist

• Searched the issues page for similar reports
• Read the relevant sections of the Spyder Troubleshooting Guide and followed its advice
• Reproduced the issue after updating with conda update spyder (or pip, if not using Anaconda)
• Could not reproduce inside jupyter qtconsole (if console-related)
• Tried basic troubleshooting (if a bug/error)
  • Restarted Spyder
  • Reset preferences with spyder --reset
  • Reinstalled the latest version of Anaconda
  • Tried the other applicable steps from the Troubleshooting Guide
• Completed the Problem Description, Steps to Reproduce and Version sections below

Problem Description

The window that matplotlib uses to show plots when “Graphics Backend” is set to “Automatic” is unresponsive if the code is run with spyder. The save button does not prompt the saving dialog window, and the responsiveness in general is laggy when zooming plots and rotating 3d-plots. It works just fine when the same script is run through a regular console: python <nameofscript>. It used to work fine with spyder 4.1.3. spyder --reset did not change anything.

What steps reproduce the problem?

1. write script that makes plots
2. set “Graphics Backend” to “automatic” or “Qt5”
3. run script through spyder

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?

Got a plot, but cannot save it using the save button, and interaction in general is very laggy.

Paste Traceback/Error Below (if applicable)

log.txt

Versions

• Spyder version: 4.1.4
• Python version: 3.7.8
• Qt version: 5.15.0
• PyQt version: 5.15.0
• Operating System name/version: Gentoo Linux, kernel 5.7.9

Dependencies

# Mandatory:
atomicwrites >=1.2.0           :  1.4.0 (OK)
chardet >=2.0.0                :  3.0.4 (OK)
cloudpickle >=0.5.0            :  1.5.0 (OK)
diff_match_patch >=20181111    :  20181111 (OK)
intervaltree                   :  None (OK)
IPython >=4.0                  :  7.16.1 (OK)
jedi =0.17.1                   :  0.17.1 (OK)
keyring                        :  None (OK)
nbconvert >=4.0                :  5.6.1 (OK)
numpydoc >=0.6.0               :  1.1.0 (OK)
parso =0.7.0                   :  0.7.0 (OK)
pexpect >=4.4.0                :  4.8.0 (OK)
pickleshare >=0.4              :  0.7.5 (OK)
psutil >=5.3                   :  5.7.2 (OK)
pygments >=2.0                 :  2.6.1 (OK)
pylint >=1.0                   :  2.5.3 (OK)
pyls >=0.34.0;<1.0.0           :  0.34.1 (OK)
qdarkstyle >=2.8               :  2.8.1 (OK)
qtawesome >=0.5.7              :  0.7.2 (OK)
qtconsole >=4.6.0              :  4.7.5 (OK)
qtpy >=1.5.0                   :  1.9.0 (OK)
sphinx >=0.6.6                 :  3.1.2 (OK)
spyder_kernels >=1.9.2;<1.10.0 :  1.9.2 (OK)
watchdog                       :  None (OK)
xdg >=0.26                     :  0.26 (OK)
zmq >=17                       :  19.0.1 (OK)

# Optional:
cython >=0.21                  :  0.29.21 (OK)
matplotlib >=2.0.0             :  3.2.1 (OK)
numpy >=1.7                    :  1.19.0 (OK)
pandas >=0.13.1                :  1.0.5 (OK)
scipy >=0.17.0                 :  1.5.1 (OK)
sympy >=0.7.3                  :  1.5.1 (OK)

# Spyder plugins:
spyder_line_profiler           :  0.2.1 (OK)
spyder_memory_profiler         :  0.2.1 (OK)
spyder_notebook                :  0.2.3 (OK)
spyder_terminal                :  0.3.2 (OK)
spyder_unittest                :  0.4.1 (OK)

[AndrewAmmerlaan]

@AndrewAmmerlaan, I think your problem is related to ipython/ipykernel#528. We’re looking into it right now.

@ccordoba12 Thank You, downgrading to ipykernel-5.3.2 fixed my problems 😄

[ccordoba12]

@AndrewAmmerlaan, I think your problem is related to https://github.com/ipython/ipykernel/issues/528. We’re looking into it right now.