Importerror with matplotlib > 3.7 "cannot import name 'common_texification' from 'matplotlib.backends.backend_pgf'"

[JohannesAck]

Please provide a minimal working example (MWE) that shows what isn't working as
expected. Needed is

• the Python code,

import tikzplotlib

• the output

  File "/workspaces/jax_rl_tests/tikzplotlibdebug.py", line 12, in <module>
    import tikzplotlib
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/tikzplotlib/__init__.py", line 5, in <module>
    from ._save import Flavors, get_tikz_code, save
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/tikzplotlib/_save.py", line 11, in <module>
    from . import _axes
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/tikzplotlib/_axes.py", line 3, in <module>
    from matplotlib.backends.backend_pgf import (
ImportError: cannot import name 'common_texification' from 'matplotlib.backends.backend_pgf' (/usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/matplotlib/backends/backend_pgf.py)

It seems tikzplotlib is using a deprecated API, which was made internal from matplotlib>3.7.

An easy workaround right now is to downgrade to matplotlib before 3.5.

To fix, it would probably possible to use the (internal) _escape_tex API.
https://github.com/matplotlib/matplotlib/blob/336028f4d521a23d9ea2de88b1faf82eddfa5b52/lib/matplotlib/backends/backend_pgf.py#L101

[FriedrichFroebel]

This seems to be a duplicate of #559.

[JohannesAck]

You're right, It is a duplicate.
Still I think it's helpful to have this one as well, as searching the error I got didn't lead to that issue.

As a workaround that worked for me, I downgraded matplotlib to 3.6 and used this forked version of tikzplotlib:
https://github.com/Vadim-Gorshanov/tikzplotlib/tree/7ba04ed08155637be53d58f762b74f87e6f85890