[Python] How do Matplotlib and TeX communicate?

This follows a recent post which got a few views and no reply at all. I have a system with Windows 11, Python 3.10.8 and Matplotlib 3.9.2 and MiKTeX 24.0. Until a couple of weeks ago, I was able to plot nice charts like this one:



But not any more. Out of the blue, TeX stopped working. Now I get a strange error that seems to have nothing to do with a Windows system (after a lot of omitted lines):

FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/usr/share/texmf-dist/fonts/tfm/public/cm/cmr10.tfm'


In this case, I was trying to use the Computer Modern Roman font.

The point is: this is a Windows system, while "/usr/share/texmf-dist/fonts/..." is clearly a Linux path. How are those things related?

My questions are, therefore:

(1) Where from does Matplotlib fetch the TeX-style fonts? As I said, I have MiKTeX installed.

(2) Is there a command that can tell me what is Matplotlib trying to do?

(3) Could I change the Matplotlib configuration file to point to the TeX fonts?

Don't get me wrong, though. A simple script like this one works nicely:

from matplotlib import pyplot as plt
import numpy as np

x = np.linspace(-2.0*np.pi, 2.0*np.pi, 200)

plt.figure(1)
plt.xlabel("x")
plt.ylabel("f(x)")
plt.plot(x, np.cos(x), 'b.')
plt.show()


it's when I try to use TeX rendering that I get that error message and a blank plotting window.

Any help will be much appreciated. I really don't know what to do. I have uninstalled and reinstalled everything more than once - to no avail.

Thanks.

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