# Matplotlib Configuration Issues
**URL:** https://forum.qiime2.org/t/matplotlib-configuration-issues/185
**Category:** User Support
**Created:** [December 14, 2016, 7:47pm UTC](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/matplotlib-configuration-issues/185 "2016-12-14T19:47:47Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@malenaamer](https://forum.qiime2.org/u/malenaamer)
#### Post date: [December 14, 2016, 7:47pm UTC](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/matplotlib-configuration-issues/185/1 "2016-12-14T19:47:47Z")
Hello! I tried (after fixing the LANG issue) to run the "echo "backend: Agg" \> ~/.config/matplotlib/matplotlibrc" command, but it doesn't recognize it. I think the plugins are installed, and this is the message I get after running condo list:
```
(qiime2) MacBook-Pro-de-Malena-3:~ mae$ conda install matplotlib==1.5.1
Fetching package metadata .......
Solving package specifications: ..........
# All requested packages already installed.
# packages in environment at /Users/mae/Desktop/Shell/ENTER/envs/qiime2:
#
matplotlib 1.5.1 np111py35_0
(qiime2) MacBook-Pro-de-Malena-3:~ mae$ conda list
# packages in environment at /Users/mae/Desktop/Shell/ENTER/envs/qiime2:
#
_nb_ext_conf 0.3.0 py35_0
anaconda-client 1.5.4 py35_0
appnope 0.1.0 py35_0
arrow 0.8.0 py35_0 qiime2
binaryornot 0.3.0 0_ge797740 qiime2
biom-format 2.1.5 py35_3 qiime2
cachecontrol 0.11.7 py35_0
click 6.6 py35_0
clyent 1.2.2 py35_0
cookiecutter 1.4.0 py35_0 qiime2
cycler 0.10.0 py35_0
decorator 4.0.10 py35_0
entrypoints 0.2.2 py35_0
freetype 2.5.5 1
future 0.16.0 py35_0
h5py 2.6.0 np111py35_2
hdf5 1.8.17 1
icu 54.1 0
ijson 2.3 py35_0 qiime2
ipykernel 4.5.0 py35_0
ipymd 0.1.2 py35_0 qiime2
ipython 5.1.0 py35_1
ipython_genutils 0.1.0 py35_0
ipywidgets 5.2.2 py35_0
jinja2 2.8 py35_1
jinja2-time 0.2.0 py35_0 qiime2
jsonschema 2.5.1 py35_0
jupyter 1.0.0 py35_3
jupyter_client 4.4.0 py35_0
jupyter_console 5.0.0 py35_0
jupyter_core 4.2.0 py35_0
libpng 1.6.22 0
lockfile 0.12.2 py35_0
markupsafe 0.23 py35_2
matplotlib 1.5.1 np111py35_0
mistune 0.7.3 py35_1
mkl 11.3.3 0
natsort 5.0.1 py35_0
nb_anacondacloud 1.2.0 py35_0
nb_conda 2.0.0 py35_0
nb_conda_kernels 2.0.0 py35_0
nbconvert 4.2.0 py35_0
nbformat 4.1.0 py35_0
nbpresent 3.0.2 py35_0
nose 1.3.7 py35_1
notebook 4.2.3 py35_0
numpy 1.11.2 py35_0
openssl 1.0.2j 0
pandas 0.19.1 np111py35_0
path.py 8.2.1 py35_0
pexpect 4.0.1 py35_0
pickleshare 0.7.4 py35_0
pip 9.0.1 py35_0
poyo 0.4.0 py35_0 qiime2
prompt_toolkit 1.0.9 py35_0
ptyprocess 0.5.1 py35_0
pygments 2.1.3 py35_0
pyparsing 2.1.4 py35_0
pyqt 4.11.4 py35_4
python 3.5.2 0
python-dateutil 2.6.0 py35_0
python-frontmatter 0.2.1 py35_0 qiime2
pytz 2016.7 py35_0
pyyaml 3.12 py35_0
pyzmq 16.0.1 py35_0
q2-feature-table 0.0.6 py35_0 qiime2
q2-types 0.0.6 py35_0 qiime2
q2cli 0.0.6 py35_0 qiime2
q2templates 0.0.6 py35_0 qiime2
qiime 2.0.6 py35_0 qiime2
qt 4.8.7 4
qtconsole 4.2.1 py35_0
readline 6.2 2
requests 2.11.1 py35_0
scikit-bio 0.5.0 np111py35_0
scipy 0.18.1 np111py35_0
seaborn 0.7.1 py35_0
setuptools 27.2.0 py35_0
simplegeneric 0.8.1 py35_1
sip 4.18 py35_0
six 1.10.0 py35_0
sqlite 3.13.0 0
terminado 0.6 py35_0
tk 8.5.18 0
tornado 4.4.2 py35_0
traitlets 4.3.1 py35_0
tzlocal 1.3 py35_0 qiime2
wcwidth 0.1.7 py35_0
wheel 0.29.0 py35_0
whichcraft 0.4.0 py35_0 qiime2
widgetsnbextension 1.2.6 py35_0
xz 5.2.2 0
yaml 0.1.6 0
zlib 1.2.8 3
(qiime2) MacBook-Pro-de-Malena-3:~ mae$ echo "backend: Agg" > ~/.config/matplotlib/matplotlibrc
-bash: /Users/mae/.config/matplotlib/matplotlibrc: No such file or directory
```
I still can´t see my plugins, am I missing something?
Thanks for your help!
---
### Author:  [@thermokarst](https://forum.qiime2.org/u/thermokarst)
#### Post date: [December 14, 2016, 8:36pm UTC](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/matplotlib-configuration-issues/185/2 "2016-12-14T20:36:09Z")
Hi @malenaamer! Are you running QIIME 2 on a server somewhere that doesn't have a display attached to it? If not, you don't need to worry about the `echo "backend: Agg" > ~/.config/matplotlib/matplotlibrc` command. If you **are** installing QIIME 2 in a headless environment (no display, e.g. desktop GUI), then you need to make sure that the necessary directories are in place before running that command:
```sh
$ mkdir -p ~/.config/matplotlib
$ echo "backend: Agg" > ~/.config/matplotlib/matplotlibrc
```
Hope that helps!
---
### Author:  [@malenaamer](https://forum.qiime2.org/u/malenaamer)
#### Post date: [December 14, 2016, 10:57pm UTC](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/matplotlib-configuration-issues/185/3 "2016-12-14T22:57:38Z")
Hi Matt!
I ran the code but I´m not seeing my plugins yet, I also restarted the terminal, here's how it looks like:
```
MacBook-Pro-de-Malena-3:~ mae$ source activate qiime2
(qiime2) MacBook-Pro-de-Malena-3:~ mae$ qiime info
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/Users/mae/Desktop/Shell/ENTER/envs/qiime2/bin/qiime", line 6, in
sys.exit(q2cli. __main__.qiime())
File "/Users/mae/Desktop/Shell/ENTER/envs/qiime2/lib/python3.5/site-packages/click/core.py", line 716, in __call__
return self.main(*args, **kwargs)
File "/Users/mae/Desktop/Shell/ENTER/envs/qiime2/lib/python3.5/site-packages/click/core.py", line 675, in main
_verify_python3_env()
File "/Users/mae/Desktop/Shell/ENTER/envs/qiime2/lib/python3.5/site-packages/click/_unicodefun.py", line 119, in _verify_python3_env
'mitigation steps.' + extra)
RuntimeError: Click will abort further execution because Python 3 was configured to use ASCII as encoding for the environment. Either run this under Python 2 or consult http://click.pocoo.org/python3/ for mitigation steps.
This system lists a couple of UTF-8 supporting locales that
you can pick from. The following suitable locales where
discovered: af_ZA.UTF-8, am_ET.UTF-8, be_BY.UTF-8, bg_BG.UTF-8, ca_ES.UTF-8, cs_CZ.UTF-8, da_DK.UTF-8, de_AT.UTF-8, de_CH.UTF-8, de_DE.UTF-8, el_GR.UTF-8, en_AU.UTF-8, en_CA.UTF-8, en_GB.UTF-8, en_IE.UTF-8, en_NZ.UTF-8, en_US.UTF-8, es_ES.UTF-8, et_EE.UTF-8, eu_ES.UTF-8, fi_FI.UTF-8, fr_BE.UTF-8, fr_CA.UTF-8, fr_CH.UTF-8, fr_FR.UTF-8, he_IL.UTF-8, hr_HR.UTF-8, hu_HU.UTF-8, hy_AM.UTF-8, is_IS.UTF-8, it_CH.UTF-8, it_IT.UTF-8, ja_JP.UTF-8, kk_KZ.UTF-8, ko_KR.UTF-8, lt_LT.UTF-8, nl_BE.UTF-8, nl_NL.UTF-8, no_NO.UTF-8, pl_PL.UTF-8, pt_BR.UTF-8, pt_PT.UTF-8, ro_RO.UTF-8, ru_RU.UTF-8, sk_SK.UTF-8, sl_SI.UTF-8, sr_YU.UTF-8, sv_SE.UTF-8, tr_TR.UTF-8, uk_UA.UTF-8, zh_CN.UTF-8, zh_HK.UTF-8, zh_TW.UTF-8
(qiime2) MacBook-Pro-de-Malena-3:~ mae$ export LANG=en_us.UTF-8
(qiime2) MacBook-Pro-de-Malena-3:~ mae$ qiime info
System versions
Python version: 3.5.2
QIIME version: 2.0.6
q2cli version: 0.0.6
Installed plugins
No plugins are currently installed.
You can browse the official QIIME 2 plugins at https://qiime2.org
Application config directory
/Users/mae/Library/Application Support/q2cli
Getting help
To get help with QIIME 2, visit https://qiime2.org
Citing QIIME 2
If you use QIIME 2 in any published work, you should cite QIIME 2 and the plugins that you used. To display the citations for QIIME and all installed plugins, run:
qiime info --citations
(qiime2) MacBook-Pro-de-Malena-3:~ mae$ mkdir -p ~/.config/matplotlib
(qiime2) MacBook-Pro-de-Malena-3:~ mae$ echo "backend: Agg" > ~/.config/matplotlib/matplotlibrc
(qiime2) MacBook-Pro-de-Malena-3:~ mae$ qiime info
System versions
Python version: 3.5.2
QIIME version: 2.0.6
q2cli version: 0.0.6
Installed plugins
No plugins are currently installed.
You can browse the official QIIME 2 plugins at https://qiime2.org
Application config directory
/Users/mae/Library/Application Support/q2cli
Getting help
To get help with QIIME 2, visit https://qiime2.org
Citing QIIME 2
If you use QIIME 2 in any published work, you should cite QIIME 2 and the plugins that you used. To display the citations for QIIME and all installed plugins, run:
qiime info --citations
(qiime2) MacBook-Pro-de-Malena-3:~ mae$
```
Any suggestions? Thank you!
---
### Author:  [@thermokarst](https://forum.qiime2.org/u/thermokarst)
#### Post date: [December 14, 2016, 11:36pm UTC](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/matplotlib-configuration-issues/185/4 "2016-12-14T23:36:43Z")
Hi @malenaamer - as I mentioned above, it doesn't look like you need to run the following:
> [@malenaamer](#):
>
> (qiime2) MacBook-Pro-de-Malena-3:~ mae$ mkdir -p ~/.config/matplotlib
> (qiime2) MacBook-Pro-de-Malena-3:~ mae$ echo "backend: Agg" \> ~/.config/matplotlib/matplotlibrc
because it looks like you are using a Macbook, which probably means you have a monitor available (those commands are only suggested for environments without a display).
It looks like you have successfully installed the QIIME 2 framework and the CLI interface. Now you should be able to install some plugins. Putting it together with what you just posted (slightly reordered and edited):
```sh
$ source activate qiime2
$ export LANG=en_us.UTF-8
$ conda install matplotlib==1.5.1
$ conda install -c qiime2 q2-types q2-feature-table
```
Now when you run `qiime info` you should see two new plugins installed: `q2-types` and `q2-feature-table`. If you want to install more plugins, I suggest that you follow along with [the documentation](https://docs.qiime2.org/2.0.6/install/#install-plugins). Thanks!
---
### Author:  [@malenaamer](https://forum.qiime2.org/u/malenaamer)
#### Post date: [December 14, 2016, 11:53pm UTC](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/matplotlib-configuration-issues/185/5 "2016-12-14T23:53:39Z")
> [@thermokarst](#):
>
> conda install -c qiime2 q2-types q2-feature-table
Hi matt, I´m sorry for this trouble, but I still can´t see my plugins, even after I restart and put all those commands:
```
Last login: Wed Dec 14 15:52:56 on ttys000
MacBook-Pro-de-Malena-3:~ mae$ source activate qiime2
(qiime2) MacBook-Pro-de-Malena-3:~ mae$ export LANG=en_us.UTF-8
(qiime2) MacBook-Pro-de-Malena-3:~ mae$ conda install matplotlib==1.5.1
Fetching package metadata .......
Solving package specifications: ..........
# All requested packages already installed.
# packages in environment at /Users/mae/Desktop/Shell/ENTER/envs/qiime2:
#
matplotlib 1.5.1 np111py35_0
(qiime2) MacBook-Pro-de-Malena-3:~ mae$ conda install -c qiime2 q2-types q2-feature-table
Fetching package metadata .........
Solving package specifications: ..........
# All requested packages already installed.
# packages in environment at /Users/mae/Desktop/Shell/ENTER/envs/qiime2:
#
q2-feature-table 0.0.6 py35_0 qiime2
q2-types 0.0.6 py35_0 qiime2
(qiime2) MacBook-Pro-de-Malena-3:~ mae$ qiime info
System versions
Python version: 3.5.2
QIIME version: 2.0.6
q2cli version: 0.0.6
Installed plugins
No plugins are currently installed.
You can browse the official QIIME 2 plugins at https://qiime2.org
Application config directory
/Users/mae/Library/Application Support/q2cli
Getting help
To get help with QIIME 2, visit https://qiime2.org
Citing QIIME 2
If you use QIIME 2 in any published work, you should cite QIIME 2 and the plugins that you used. To display the citations for QIIME and all installed plugins, run:
qiime info --citations
(qiime2) MacBook-Pro-de-Malena-3:~ mae$ qiime feature-table
Usage: qiime [OPTIONS] COMMAND [ARGS]...
Error: No such command "feature-table".
(qiime2) MacBook-Pro-de-Malena-3:~ mae$
```
Thanks for your help!
---
### Author:  [@thermokarst](https://forum.qiime2.org/u/thermokarst)
#### Post date: [December 14, 2016, 11:58pm UTC](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/matplotlib-configuration-issues/185/6 "2016-12-14T23:58:26Z")
How about running `qiime dev refresh-cache`? That will force qiime to relearn about any plugins you have installed. Then you could run `qiime info` and confirm that they are registering correctly.
---
### Author:  [@malenaamer](https://forum.qiime2.org/u/malenaamer)
#### Post date: [December 15, 2016, 12:22am UTC](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/matplotlib-configuration-issues/185/7 "2016-12-15T00:22:18Z")
YEEEESSS!! It worked! Thanks so much!