[Matplotlib-users] a possible bug report

[M.Rule <mru...@gm...>]

Hi all,

I haven't been able to find a more official place to report potential
Matplotlib bugs, so I'm going to describe the issue I'm seeing here. Sorry
if this is the wrong forum.

On my system, it takes matplotlib a very very long time to close plots.
Sometimes, up to 20 minutes to close a simple figure. Creating new figures
remains fast. The problem seems to occur only when I've loaded a large
amount of data in to python ( on the order of 1GB ). I am using the current
version of Ubuntu and running "ipython --pylab". To reproduce on my system,
it is sufficient to load a large amount of data, create a plot.. any plot,
and then try to close it using the little "x" at the top right corner of
the window. The whole session will freeze for an extended period of time.
The plot does not have to be complex: a hundred datapoints, a thousand, it
makes no difference. Since the problem only occurs when a large amount of
data has been loaded, my guess is that there is a problem with how
Matplotlib/Pylab/Python is trying to free the memory associated with the
figure?

So... I just though I'd put this out there in case anyone else sees the
same issue, or in case a developer who knows why this might be happening
reads this. The workaround for me is... to simply wait for the figures to
close, however long that may take, or restart the whole session.

Best,
michael.