[Python] MNE/Matplotlib Visualization Causes EasyGUI-QT to Crash

I'm facing an issue combining mne, matplotlib and easygui-qt and I'm not sure how to find out where the issue is exactly.

I'm trying to show the user an mne-generated figure (preferably interactive) and an easygui-qt-generated modal (see example below). I want the user to be able to play with the figure as much as they want, and eventually click provide input through the pop-up modal. Problem is, when generating the figure, matplotlib turns on interactive mode, which for some reason causes easygui-qt to crash.

For example, in the following code, no matter how I tried to turn off the interactive mode or prevent the figure from being rendered (see the # comments), the input2 line causes the script to crash as soon as the user provides an input (i.e., after clicking one of the buttons), and never reaches the print line.

import matplotlib
import mne
from mne.datasets import sample
from mne.io import read_raw_fif
import easygui_qt.easygui_qt as gui
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

matplotlib.use('Qt5Agg')
mne.viz.set_browser_backend('qt') # or "matplotlib"


fname = sample.data_path() / "MEG" / "sample" / "sample_audvis_raw.fif"
raw = read_raw_fif(fname, preload=False, verbose=False)
raw.crop(0, 60).pick("eeg")
raw.load_data(verbose=False)

input1 = gui.get_continue_or_cancel(title="Input 1", message="", continue_button_text="T", cancel_button_text="F")
fig = raw.plot(verbose=False, show=True) # can set show=False with same downstream effect
# plt.ioff() # this has no effect
# matplotlib.interactive(False) # this has no effect
input2 = gui.get_continue_or_cancel(title="Input 2", message="", continue_button_text="T", cancel_button_text="F")
print(f"In 1: {input1}\t\tIn 2: {input2}")


Thanks for the help

Package versions:

matplotlib:3.8.4
PyQt5: 5.15.11
easygui-qt: 0.9.3
mne: 1.9.0
mne-qt-browser: 0.6.3


And other system info:

>>> mne.sys_info()
Platform Windows-11-10.0.26100-SP0
Python 3.12.3 (tags/v3.12.3:f6650f9, Apr 9 2024, 14:05:25) [MSC v.1938 64 bit (AMD64)]
Executable C:\Path\To\venv\Scripts\python.exe
CPU 13th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-13700 (24 cores)
Memory 63.7 GiB
Core
+ mne 1.9.0 (latest release)
+ numpy 2.1.1 (OpenBLAS 0.3.27 with 24 threads)
+ scipy 1.15.1
+ matplotlib 3.8.4Backend QtAgg is interactive backend. Turning interactive mode on.
(backend=QtAgg)
Numerical (optional)
+ sklearn 1.6.1
+ pandas 2.2.3
+ h5py 3.12.1
- unavailable numba, nibabel, nilearn, dipy, openmeeg, cupy, h5io
Visualization (optional)
+ qtpy 2.4.3 (PyQt6=6.8.2)
+ pyqtgraph 0.13.7
+ mne-qt-browser 0.6.3
- unavailable pyvista, pyvistaqt, vtk, ipympl, ipywidgets, trame_client, trame_server, trame_vtk, trame_vuetify
Ecosystem (optional)
+ mne-icalabel 0.7.0
- unavailable mne-bids, mne-nirs, mne-features, mne-connectivity, mne-bids-pipeline, neo, eeglabio, edfio, mffpy, pybv

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