Why are my plots not showing up in Jupyter Notebook?

Step 1: Check Your Code
Ensure that you have written the correct code for plotting. If you're using a library like Matplotlib, your code should look something like this:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
plt.plot([1, 2, 3, 4])
plt.ylabel('some numbers')
plt.show()

The last line, plt.show(), is especially important. This command actually displays the plot. If you forget it, your plot will not appear.

Step 2: Check Your Jupyter Notebook Settings
Jupyter Notebook has a specific setting for Matplotlib. You need to tell Jupyter to display the plots in the notebook itself. You can do this by running the following line before your plot:

%matplotlib inline

This line only needs to be run once per notebook.

Step 3: Update Your Libraries
If your plots are still not showing up, it might be because your libraries are out of date. You can update them using pip:

pip install --upgrade matplotlib

Or, if you're using the Anaconda distribution of Python, you can use conda:

conda update matplotlib

Step 4: Restart Your Jupyter Notebook
Sometimes, Jupyter can get stuck in a bad state. Restarting it can often resolve the issue. You can do this by going to the "Kernel" menu and selecting "Restart". Then, try running your plot code again.

Step 5: Check for Errors
If your plots are still not showing up, check the output of your plot commands for errors. Python will typically print out a message if something goes wrong. This message can give you a clue as to what's going wrong.

Step 6: Ask for Help
If you've tried all of the above steps and your plots are still not showing up, it might be time to ask for help. You can post a question on a site like Stack Overflow, or ask a knowledgeable friend. When you ask, be sure to include your code and any error messages you're seeing. This will make it easier for others to help you.