multi-subplot animation problem

[gfunch]

I am trying to create a multi-subplot animation which is loosely based
on the animation example code, subplots.py, at
http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/examples/animation/subplots.html

A simplified version of the full code is shown at this gist:
https://gist.github.com/3613113

I am having problems getting the code to function properly. If I run
it as is, the figure appears, but no animation is done. Apparently
the setup code is called, but the code to change the frames is not.
If I comment out the call to the setup code, the method to update
the frame is called once, and that is it.

[nithyanandan]

Did you try setting blit=False ? I had a problem where one of the subplots was static and the other was animating. Setting blit=False solved my problem.

[tacaswell]

The problem is related to #1656 . All of the timers and such for the animation are wrapped up in the FuncAnimation object. As your gist file is, you do not keep a ref to ani around so it gets garbage collected after __init__ opens.

Changing your __init__ to

class DataAnimator(object):
    def __init__(self):
        ...
        self.ani = animation.FuncAnimation(self.fig, self._update_frame, init_func=self._setup)

makes your gist behaves correctly.

Given how often this comes up, there should be something added to the documentation. Closing this in favor of #1656 .