Re: [Matplotlib-users] Crashing with a St8bad_cast

>> Trying to import pylab from the shell gives me a Bus Error.
>  [...]
>> Anybody have any ideas on what to do from here?
>
> Follow the instructions in the SEGFAULTS file, which begins as  
> follows:
>
> | First thing to try is simply rm -rf the site-packages/matplotlib and
> | build subdirs and get a clean install.  Installing a new version  
> over
> | a pretty old version has been known to cause trouble, segfault, etc.

Thanks Jouni,

For the sake of posterity- after going through a witch-hunt of stale  
library versions, etc, it turned out that nuking the matplotlib dir  
from my site-packages folder was probably what ended up doing the trick.

If you, like me, have python installed in via macports, note that  
you'll have two site-packages folders (in this case, it's python 2.4):

   * /opt/local/lib/python2.4/site-packates
   * /opt/local/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.4/lib/ 
python2.4/site-packages

Not sure how it might happen, but it wouldn't hurt to ensure that  
there isn't a matplotlib install in both of those places :-)

Thanks again,
-steve