Problem with ipywidgets and plotly on Databricks

moseb · ‎04-09-2025

Hi everyone,

I am encountering a problem when using ipywidgets with plotly on Databricks. I am trying to pass interactive arguments to a function and then plot with plotly.

When I do the following

def f(m, b) :

plt.figure(2)

x = np.linspace(-10, 10, num=1000)

plt.plot(x, m * x + b)

plt.ylim(-5, 5)

plt.show()

interactive_plot = interactive(f, m=(-2.0, 2.0), b=(-3, 3, 0.5))

output = interactive_plot.children[-1]

output.layout.height = '350px'

interactive_plot

I obtain the expected result. The following code instead

def f(m, b) :

x = np.linspace(-10, 10, num=1000)

y = m * x + b

df = pd.DataFrame({'x': x, 'y': y})

fig = px.line(df, x='x', y='y')

fig.update_yaxes(range=[-5, 5])

fig.show()

interactive_plot = interactive(f, m=(-2.0, 2.0), b=(-3, 3, 0.5))

output = interactive_plot.children[-1]

output.layout.height = '350px'

interactive_plot

causes the message Latest error: Uncaught ReferenceError: Plotly is not defined.

I am importing plotly.express and the same code runs smoothly locally on my computer.

What could be the problem? Thank you in advance!

TheRealOliver · ‎04-22-2025

It would help a lot if you attach a notebook or copy the full code that demonstrates the problem. This would make it easy for someone to copy/paste, run, and troubleshoot it and you are more likely to get effective help that way 😉

Also, since your Databricks notebook runs on some kind of Databricks compute, it might be useful to mention what are the parameters of that compute. If it is not serverless, you could include a screenshot of the cluster configuration. Things that could matter in troubleshooting are the access mode and whether it's a single user cluster and what version of Databricks does it run.

I hope this helps!

moseb · ‎05-07-2025

Thanks for the suggestion! You're absolutely right. The code was already all in my message, but I can make it easier to copy-paste (and add the imports):

from ipywidgets import interactive
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np

def f(m, b):
    plt.figure(2)
    x = np.linspace(-10, 10, num=1000)
    plt.plot(x, m * x + b)
    plt.ylim(-5, 5)
    plt.show()

interactive_plot = interactive(f, m=(-2.0, 2.0), b=(-3, 3, 0.5))
output = interactive_plot.children[-1]
output.layout.height = '350px'
interactive_plot

I'll also include details about the Databricks compute environment in a screenshot.

GregBrandani · ‎09-02-2025

I'm having this same exact issue. @moseb any chance you were able to figure it out?