Pyansys/pymapdl plotting error

[atab-xyz]

trying to follow the PyMAPDL example:

Overview of PyMAPDL | Ansys Innovation Courses (exact course: Overview of Ansys PyMAPDL — Lesson 1)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmP_ipy2PhI&t=300s

have downloaded the jupyter notebook from Ansys courses.
https://ansys13.ansys.com/AnsysInnovationCourses/MBU/PyAnsys/GettingStartedWithPyMAPDL/OverviewOfPyMAPDL/plate_with_holes.zip

I see an error with regard to plotting.
local python: 3.11.8 (and 3.13.9)
pyansys 2025.2.5
ansys.mapdl.core 0.70.2 (and 0.71.3)
jupyterlab 4.5.1
jupyter1.1.1
pyvtk 0.15.8
pydpf 1.1.1
matplotlib 3.10.8
numpy 2.2.2
error happens with plotting, with the command line:

mapdl.vplot

and other plot commands, like eplot.

error happens with all the combinations of versions of python and ansys-mapdl-core above; looks like it is related to asynchronous i/o
note: simulation gets complete. (no run/solve issue)

The error looks like this (for one of the version combinations):

Exception in callback Task.__step()
handle: <Handle Task.__step()>
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\Users*.pyenv\pyenv-win\versions\3.13.9\Lib\asyncio\events.py", line 89, in _run
self._context.run(self._callback, self._args)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
RuntimeError: cannot enter context: <_contextvars.Context object at 0x000002045E7B1340> is already entered
Exception in callback Task.__step()
handle: <Handle Task.__step()>
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\Users*.pyenv\pyenv-win\versions\3.13.9\Lib\asyncio\events.py", line 89, in _run
self._context.run(self._callback, self._args)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
RuntimeError: cannot enter context: <_contextvars.Context object at 0x000002045E7B1340> is already entered
Exception in callback Task.__step()
handle: <Handle Task.__step()>
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\Users**.pyenv\pyenv-win\versions\3.13.9\Lib\asyncio\events.py", line 89, in _run
self._context.run(self._callback, *self._args)

[mikerife]

Hi @atab-xyz
I just installed Python 3.13.9; created a venv environment and installed those versions of pymapdl, lupyter etc; also installed ansys.mapdl.core[graphics]; and the vplot from the second command block of that example works fine. Oh, on Windows 11. Can you narrow down which version combination the error is actually from?
MIke

[atab-xyz]

hello Mike
with windows 11, Ansys 2024 R2, python 3.13.19, pymapdl 0.71.3, ansys-mapdl-core[graphics] installed (pip, typically latest version), I see the error (jupyter lab 4.5.1)

[mikerife]

Hi @atab-xyz well, I just tried with mapdl 24R2 and cannot recreate the error. Did you happen to ask Ansys Technical Support about this a few days ago? Maybe @germa89 has an idea?
Mike

[atab-xyz]

hello @mikerife
yes, I did ask Ansys Tech support about the exact same problem. Eventually, no big deal as long as I can do the visualization through other means (like Ansys viewer or Mechanical GUI?) when using PyMAPDL to define and solve runs. As said, I can run the problem completely, but the visualization does not work.
is there a way to switch back and forth between Mechanical GUI and Python? I have not yet tried the python object in Mechanical GUI; am not sure what it does and how it works.
thanks

[mikerife]

Pinging @germa89 @clatapie for help...

[germa89]

You can open the GUI with:

mapdl.open_gui()

But it is slow

[germa89]

That is an strange issue, because PyMAPDL does not use asyncio explicitly I believe. This issue is very likely coming from JupyterLab.

Can you share the full traceback?

[germa89]

I would probably check if the script runs as a python script (python script.py). If it is a jupyter notebook, you can download/convert it to a python script and try.