I just used conda to upgrade my Anaconda installation, and Matplotlib switched from v1.4.0 to v1.4.2. However, now all my Python jobs that use Matplotlib.pyplot throw exceptions.
Even a simple command:
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
throws a TypeError exception by saying:
cannot return std :: string from a Unicode object
Tracking tells me that the exception occurs in the font_manager.py file, here:
try: font = ft2font.FT2Font(fpath) except RuntimeError: verbose.report("Could not open font file %s" % fpath) continue except UnicodeError: verbose.report("Cannot handle unicode filenames") continue
especially on the line font = ft2font.FT2Font(fpath) .
I tried to return to Matplotlib v1.4.0, but this did not fix the problem.
Then I edited font_manager.py to add a generic exception case:
except: verbose.report("Some stupid error occurred") continue
in the hope that he would temporarily circumvent the problem, which he did, but this error or something very similar to it happened later. So, I removed the exception, but the error still occurs at a later point in the code (therefore, if I run import matplotlib.pyplot as plt , it works, but the execution of other commands may fail).
I use Matplotlib to create / update hundreds of charts during the day, and now everything is broken.
Please, help! Thanks!