[FIXED] "Get_Data_Path" AttributeError when loading matplotlib after reinstalling

Issue

I was trying to upgrade matplotlib with pip, only to encounter this error:

Collecting matplotlib
  Downloading matplotlib-3.4.2-cp38-cp38-win_amd64.whl (7.1 MB)
     |████████████████████████████████| 7.1 MB 3.2 MB/s
Requirement already satisfied, skipping upgrade: pyparsing>=2.2.1 in c:\users\mccom\anaconda3\lib\site-packages (from matplotlib) (2.4.7)
Requirement already satisfied, skipping upgrade: cycler>=0.10 in c:\users\mccom\anaconda3\lib\site-packages (from matplotlib) (0.10.0)
Requirement already satisfied, skipping upgrade: python-dateutil>=2.7 in c:\users\mccom\anaconda3\lib\site-packages (from matplotlib) (2.8.1)
Requirement already satisfied, skipping upgrade: kiwisolver>=1.0.1 in c:\users\mccom\anaconda3\lib\site-packages (from matplotlib) (1.3.0)
Requirement already satisfied, skipping upgrade: pillow>=6.2.0 in c:\users\mccom\anaconda3\lib\site-packages (from matplotlib) (8.0.1)
Requirement already satisfied, skipping upgrade: numpy>=1.16 in c:\users\mccom\anaconda3\lib\site-packages (from matplotlib) (1.19.2)
Requirement already satisfied, skipping upgrade: six in c:\users\mccom\anaconda3\lib\site-packages (from cycler>=0.10->matplotlib) (1.15.0)
Installing collected packages: matplotlib
  Attempting uninstall: matplotlib
    Found existing installation: matplotlib 3.3.2
    Uninstalling matplotlib-3.3.2:
ERROR: Could not install packages due to an EnvironmentError: [WinError 5] Access is denied: 'c:\\users\\mccom\\anaconda3\\lib\\site-packages\\matplotlib\\backends\\_backend_agg.cp38-win_amd64.pyd'
Consider using the `--user` option or check the permissions.

So it uninstalled without upgrading. I went to reinstall: which went well (output for reference)

(base) C:\Users\mccom>pip install matplotlib
Collecting matplotlib
  Using cached matplotlib-3.4.2-cp38-cp38-win_amd64.whl (7.1 MB)
Requirement already satisfied: pyparsing>=2.2.1 in c:\users\mccom\anaconda3\lib\site-packages (from matplotlib) (2.4.7)
Requirement already satisfied: cycler>=0.10 in c:\users\mccom\anaconda3\lib\site-packages (from matplotlib) (0.10.0)
Requirement already satisfied: kiwisolver>=1.0.1 in c:\users\mccom\anaconda3\lib\site-packages (from matplotlib) (1.3.0)
Requirement already satisfied: pillow>=6.2.0 in c:\users\mccom\anaconda3\lib\site-packages (from matplotlib) (8.0.1)
Requirement already satisfied: python-dateutil>=2.7 in c:\users\mccom\anaconda3\lib\site-packages (from matplotlib) (2.8.1)
Requirement already satisfied: numpy>=1.16 in c:\users\mccom\anaconda3\lib\site-packages (from matplotlib) (1.19.2)
Requirement already satisfied: six in c:\users\mccom\anaconda3\lib\site-packages (from cycler>=0.10->matplotlib) (1.15.0)
Installing collected packages: matplotlib
Successfully installed matplotlib-3.4.2

However when I try to load in Jupyter notebook I get:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
AttributeError                            Traceback (most recent call last)
<ipython-input-7-0484cd13f94d> in <module>
----> 1 import matplotlib

~\Anaconda3\lib\site-packages\matplotlib\__init__.py in <module>
    821 # triggering resolution of _auto_backend_sentinel.
    822 rcParamsDefault = _rc_params_in_file(
--> 823     cbook._get_data_path("matplotlibrc"),
    824     # Strip leading comment.
    825     transform=lambda line: line[1:] if line.startswith("#") else line,

~\Anaconda3\lib\site-packages\matplotlib\cbook\__init__.py in _get_data_path(*args)
    478     if opened:
    479         with fh:
--> 480             yield fh
    481     else:
    482         yield fh

AttributeError: module 'matplotlib' has no attribute 'get_data_path'

Solution

I feel stupid.

I went ahead and uninstalled it and then did pip install matplotlib --user. Will keep this up if anyone else has trouble.

Answered By - Kbbm