Upstream reports this to have been fixed in ipykernel 4.4 (ipython/ipykernel#157). I do not appear to be able to reproduce it with current unstable (4.5.2). $ jupyter qtconsole --kernel python3 [1] %pylab inline [2] import pylab [3] pylab.plot([1,2,3], [4,5,6]) (succeeds, plot displayed)