Intermittent Connection Issues using Python API

📊 Plotly Python
1

Hi,

Occasionally (yesterday for example - 11th of April 2017) I get random connection errors to Plot.ly using the Python API. It will maybe be 1 time out of 20, so not completely broken, but often enough to be very noticeable.

I tried Plotly support but they told me:

1/ I must have a configuration error
2/ No one else has reported errors
3/ They don’t offer API support anymore without an extra plan

At this point the chat mysteriously stopped working so it seems like they have blocked me from using it. For $89 per month it seems poor to get no support at all.

An example of yesterday’s intermittent error message when trying to create PNG files from charts:

plotly.exceptions.PlotlyRequestsError: Unknown Image Server Error

Pretty helpful error message.

My server is hosted with AWS so it is not a local connection issue.

Has anyone else experienced this?

Thanks for any feedback

Blair

2

@admiralblair:
I started noticing this problem last week, it happens when saving a plot as svg, but it might also happen with othe formats:

PlotlyRequestError                        Traceback (most recent call last)
<ipython-input-20-d63e2c33dbd9> in <module>()
     95 iplot(fig)
     96 # Save the figure as a svg image:
---> 97 py.image.save_as(fig, filename='SNRboxplots.svg')

/home/kai/tools/Programming/anaconda2/lib/python2.7/site-packages/plotly/plotly/plotly.pyc in save_as(cls, figure_or_data, filename, format, width, height, scale)
    826             filename += '.' + format
    827 
--> 828         img = cls.get(figure_or_data, format, width, height, scale)
    829 
    830         f = open(filename, 'wb')

/home/kai/tools/Programming/anaconda2/lib/python2.7/site-packages/plotly/plotly/plotly.pyc in get(figure_or_data, format, width, height, scale)
    739             payload['scale'] = scale
    740 
--> 741         response = v2.images.create(payload)
    742 
    743         headers = response.headers

/home/kai/tools/Programming/anaconda2/lib/python2.7/site-packages/plotly/api/v2/images.pyc in create(body)
     16     """
     17     url = build_url(RESOURCE)
---> 18     return request('post', url, json=body)

/home/kai/tools/Programming/anaconda2/lib/python2.7/site-packages/plotly/api/v2/utils.pyc in request(method, url, **kwargs)
    151         content = response.content if response else 'No content'
    152         raise exceptions.PlotlyRequestError(message, status_code, content)
--> 153     validate_response(response)
    154     return response

/home/kai/tools/Programming/anaconda2/lib/python2.7/site-packages/plotly/api/v2/utils.pyc in validate_response(response)
     77         message = content if content else 'No Content'
     78 
---> 79     raise exceptions.PlotlyRequestError(message, status_code, content)
     80 
     81 

PlotlyRequestError: Unknown Image Server Error
3

I am afraid this now happens at least 10-20% of the time and as such I will be forced to look elsewhere for a provider. Having experienced Plotly’s support I am not willing to pay $500 to be told that it is either my fault or a connection issue.