<p dir="auto">I'm attempting to re-open <a class="issue-link js-issue-link" data-error-text="Failed to load title" data-id="183537858" data-permission-text="Title is private" data-url="https://github.com/mwaskom/seaborn/issues/1059" data-hovercard-type="issue" data-hovercard-url="/mwaskom/seaborn/issues/1059/hovercard" href="https://github.com/mwaskom/seaborn/issues/1059">#1059</a>, as seaborn should definitely be able to plot distributions over date ranges, and telling us to just use <code class="notranslate">plt.hist</code> is a work-around, not a solution. It sounds like a few changes in the calculations of the means and for colors and bin sizes should get it working (<a class="issue-link js-issue-link" data-error-text="Failed to load title" data-id="183537858" data-permission-text="Title is private" data-url="https://github.com/mwaskom/seaborn/issues/1059" data-hovercard-type="issue" data-hovercard-url="/mwaskom/seaborn/issues/1059/hovercard?comment_id=254355469&amp;comment_type=issue_comment" href="https://github.com/mwaskom/seaborn/issues/1059#issuecomment-254355469">#1059 (comment)</a>).</p>
<p dir="auto"><code class="notranslate">sb.distplot(np.arange('2016-01', '2016-05', dtype='datetime64[D]'))</code></p>
<div class="snippet-clipboard-content notranslate position-relative overflow-auto" data-snippet-clipboard-copy-content="---------------------------------------------------------------------------
TypeError                                 Traceback (most recent call last)
&lt;ipython-input-174-b58909c41bc2&gt; in &lt;module&gt;
----&gt; 1 sb.distplot(np.arange('2016-01', '2016-05', dtype='datetime64[D]'))

/opt/conda/lib/python3.6/site-packages/seaborn/distributions.py in distplot(a, bins, hist, kde, rug, fit, hist_kws, kde_kws, rug_kws, fit_kws, color, vertical, norm_hist, axlabel, label, ax)
    196             line, = ax.plot(0, a.mean())
    197         else:
--&gt; 198             line, = ax.plot(a.mean(), 0)
    199         color = line.get_color()
    200         line.remove()

/opt/conda/lib/python3.6/site-packages/numpy/core/_methods.py in _mean(a, axis, dtype, out, keepdims)
     73             is_float16_result = True
     74 
---&gt; 75     ret = umr_sum(arr, axis, dtype, out, keepdims)
     76     if isinstance(ret, mu.ndarray):
     77         ret = um.true_divide(

TypeError: ufunc add cannot use operands with types dtype('&lt;M8[D]') and dtype('&lt;M8[D]')"><pre class="notranslate"><code class="notranslate">---------------------------------------------------------------------------
TypeError                                 Traceback (most recent call last)
&lt;ipython-input-174-b58909c41bc2&gt; in &lt;module&gt;
----&gt; 1 sb.distplot(np.arange('2016-01', '2016-05', dtype='datetime64[D]'))

/opt/conda/lib/python3.6/site-packages/seaborn/distributions.py in distplot(a, bins, hist, kde, rug, fit, hist_kws, kde_kws, rug_kws, fit_kws, color, vertical, norm_hist, axlabel, label, ax)
    196             line, = ax.plot(0, a.mean())
    197         else:
--&gt; 198             line, = ax.plot(a.mean(), 0)
    199         color = line.get_color()
    200         line.remove()

/opt/conda/lib/python3.6/site-packages/numpy/core/_methods.py in _mean(a, axis, dtype, out, keepdims)
     73             is_float16_result = True
     74 
---&gt; 75     ret = umr_sum(arr, axis, dtype, out, keepdims)
     76     if isinstance(ret, mu.ndarray):
     77         ret = um.true_divide(

TypeError: ufunc add cannot use operands with types dtype('&lt;M8[D]') and dtype('&lt;M8[D]')
</code></pre></div>
<p dir="auto">I'm using seaborn 0.9.0 with numpy 1.15.2</p>
<div class="snippet-clipboard-content notranslate position-relative overflow-auto" data-snippet-clipboard-copy-content="%matplotlib inline
import numpy as np
import pandas as pd
import seaborn as sns

mean, cov = [0, 1], [(1, .5), (.5, 1)]
data = np.random.multivariate_normal(mean, cov, 200)
df = pd.DataFrame(data, columns=[&quot;x&quot;, &quot;y&quot;])

sns.jointplot(x=&quot;Not_X_Name&quot;, y=&quot;Not_a_valid_name&quot;, data=df)
sns.jointplot(x=&quot;Not_X_Name&quot;, y=&quot;y&quot;, data=df)
sns.jointplot(x=&quot;&quot;, y=&quot;&quot;, data=df)"><pre class="notranslate"><code class="notranslate">%matplotlib inline
import numpy as np
import pandas as pd
import seaborn as sns

mean, cov = [0, 1], [(1, .5), (.5, 1)]
data = np.random.multivariate_normal(mean, cov, 200)
df = pd.DataFrame(data, columns=["x", "y"])

sns.jointplot(x="Not_X_Name", y="Not_a_valid_name", data=df)
sns.jointplot(x="Not_X_Name", y="y", data=df)
sns.jointplot(x="", y="", data=df)
</code></pre></div>
<p dir="auto">All of those calls return different error message, none of which are clear / help find the actual issue column names not found in the dataframe.</p>
<p dir="auto"><a class="user-mention notranslate" data-hovercard-type="user" data-hovercard-url="/users/chrish42/hovercard" data-octo-click="hovercard-link-click" data-octo-dimensions="link_type:self" href="https://github.com/chrish42">@chrish42</a></p>