possibly related to #665 and #3367?

I could have sworn I saw this go by very recently, but couldn't turn up the exact issue.

This seems to be a duplicate of #665, but the solution there (checking if Python is installed as a framework) doesn't seem to fix it.

Which backend are you using? Tkagg or the Mac OS X native backend?

@amadio ping

Hi @tacaswell I'm sorry, completely forgot about this issue. I don't have access to a Mac right now, and won't have for the next three months, so I can't check what backend I was using. Feel free to close this issue, I can open another when I get back home and can test this again.

I can reproduce this on a Mac with the macosx backend, Anaconda Python and current master of matplotlib. -- I should add it may be due to Anaconda Python not being a true Framework build.

Scratch that: If started with pythonw on Anaconda python, things work correctly. Using pythonw as a workaround seems reasonable.

For anyone working with scikit-learn:

Same issue here:
I got the lib from scikit: http://scikit-learn.org/stable/install.html

conda install scikit-learn

$ python
Python 2.7.11 |Anaconda 2.4.1 (x86_64)| (default, Dec  6 2015, 18:57:58) 
[GCC 4.2.1 (Apple Inc. build 5577)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
Anaconda is brought to you by Continuum Analytics.
Please check out: http://continuum.io/thanks and https://anaconda.org
>>> import sys
>>> sys.executable
'//anaconda/bin/python'

pythonw is working. But the downside is: your other python script may be broken due the the python version.

A workaround solution for Anaconda python:
in ~/.bash_profile

# added by Anaconda2 2.4.1 installer
# export PATH="//anaconda/bin:$PATH"
alias python_a='//anaconda/bin/pythonw'

Use python_a instead of python for scikit-learn or plot related scripts.

I'm going to close this, since importing Matplotlib without using pythonw now errors. Feel free to re-open if this is still an issue in Maptlotlib 2.1 whilst running pythonw!