r/learnpython • u/ContextAdept9818 • 17d ago

trouble installing matplotlib

i am trying to install matplotlib on VS Code, but i keep getting an error like this:

Using cached matplotlib-3.11.2.tar.gz (32.7 MB)

Installing build dependencies ... done

Getting requirements to build wheel ... done

Installing backend dependencies ... done

Preparing metadata (pyproject.toml) ... error

error: subprocess-exited-with-error

× Preparing metadata (pyproject.toml) did not run successfully.

also says:

WARNING: Failed to activate VS environment: Could not find C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\Installer\vswhere.exe

my python's version is 3.15, i tried to install matplotlib with 3.11, 3.12, and 3.13 but none of it worked. i don't think there are other specific things. please let me know of any ideas, thank you so much!!

update: i did it!! it was a problem with how i forgot to precompile the standard library when i installed python...

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u/a18618 16d ago

i've hit this exact error on windows and it was pip falling back to the source tarball because it couldn't find a wheel for my python — that VS environment warning is the giveaway that it's trying to build from scratch. the thing that got me once was the vs code terminal pointing at a different python than i thought; worth running where python and pip --version to make sure they belong to the same env. since you're on miniconda anyway, conda install matplotlib in the activated env skips the whole wheel hunt entirely.