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fig.update_layout(xaxis_type="category") breaks make_subplots(shared_xaxes=True)

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Assessment

Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Newbie friendliness
35/100
Issue type
Bug
Clarity
Mostly clear
Activity status
Stale
Tech stack
python
Domain
data-visualization

Research direction

Start by reproducing the reported subplot case with make_subplots(shared_xaxes=True), categorical x-axis data, and xaxis_type="category". Compare zoom behavior before and after the layout update; done means zooming one subplot also zooms the other when the x-axis data is shared.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

bug P2

This one is pretty simple to explain and see. Create a subplot with two or more plots that are using the same x-axis data, enable shared_xaxes=True, plot it, and it works as intended; zooming in on one plot zooms in on both plots.

When updating the layout to xaxis_type="category", for categorical data, even when both both subplots have the same x-axis data and shared_xaxes=True is set to true, it no longer works; the axis are no longer shared. Zooming in on one plot no longer effects the other plot.

Tested on: plotly 5.24.1, python 3.13

Dominant language
Python
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Forks
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Avg merge
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Merged PRs (30d)
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