Non responsive ipympl with ipywidgets after updating environment

Describe the issue

I have consistently used the following workflow for fully updating my Jupyter Lab working environments:

$ rmvirtualenv my_env
$ mkvirtualenv --python=`which python` my_env
[my_env] $ pip install -r requirements.txt
[my_env] $ jupyter lab build
[my_env] $ jupyter lab

Recently however, after these steps:

1. My widgets all become non-functional. I can operate and interact with them, but the figures they control do not change at all.
2. All of the widget controls move from being above the figure they control to to below it.

Projects in virtualenvs that have not been recently updated in this way continue to work fine, and updating them reliably makes them stop working.

This occurs consistently (I have now ruined half a dozen projects confirming the pattern), and even for notebooks hosted outside my local machine (such as this one hosted on Binder). Control widgets themselves seem to work fine though (e.g., in notebooks like this one) when ipympl is not involved. I have also confirmed that the observed behavior is independent of browser and local machine (at least macOS vs iOS).

Has something about Jupyter Lab, ipywidgets, or ipympl changed recently that might be causing this?

Typical post update configuration:

$ jupyter --version
Selected Jupyter core packages...
IPython          : 8.4.0
ipykernel        : 6.13.1
ipywidgets       : 7.7.0
jupyter_client   : 7.3.4
jupyter_core     : 4.10.0
jupyter_server   : 1.17.1
jupyterlab       : 3.4.3
nbclient         : 0.6.4
nbconvert        : 6.5.0
nbformat         : 5.4.0
notebook         : 6.4.12
qtconsole        : not installed
traitlets        : 5.2.2

$ jupyter labextension list 
JupyterLab v3.4.3
/Users/Rax/Documents/Projects/Coding/Python/venvs/picollisions/share/jupyter/labextensions
        jupyterlab_pygments v0.2.2 enabled OK (python, jupyterlab_pygments)
        nbdime-jupyterlab v2.1.1 enabled OK
        jupyter-matplotlib v0.11.1 enabled OK
        @jupyterlab/git v0.37.1 enabled OK (python, jupyterlab-git)
        @jupyter-widgets/jupyterlab-manager v3.1.0 enabled OK (python, jupyterlab_widgets)
        @kiteco/jupyterlab-kite v2.0.2 enabled OK (python, jupyterlab_kite)

Other labextensions (built into JupyterLab)
   app dir: /Users/Rax/Documents/Projects/Coding/Python/venvs/picollisions/share/jupyter/lab

Typical pre update configuration:

$ jupyter --version
jupyter core     : 4.7.1
jupyter-notebook : 6.4.3
qtconsole        : not installed
ipython          : 7.26.0
ipykernel        : 6.2.0
jupyter client   : 6.1.12
jupyter lab      : 3.1.10
nbconvert        : 6.1.0
ipywidgets       : 7.6.4
nbformat         : 5.1.3
traitlets        : 5.0.5

jupyter labextension list
JupyterLab v3.1.10
/Users/Rax/Documents/Projects/Coding/Python/venvs/picollisions/share/jupyter/labextensions
        nbdime-jupyterlab v2.1.0 enabled OK
        jupyter-matplotlib v0.9.0 enabled OK
        @jupyterlab/git v0.32.2 enabled OK (python, jupyterlab-git)
        @jupyter-widgets/jupyterlab-manager v3.0.0 enabled OK (python, jupyterlab_widgets)
        @kiteco/jupyterlab-kite v2.0.2 enabled OK (python, jupyterlab_kite)

/usr/local/share/jupyter/labextensions
        jupyterlab_pygments v0.2.2 enabled OK (python, jupyterlab_pygments)

Other labextensions (built into JupyterLab)
   app dir: /Users/Rax/Documents/Projects/Coding/Python/venvs/picollisions/share/jupyter/lab

Typical requirements:

#...
ipywidgets                 
ipympl

jupyterlab >=3.1                
jupyterlab-git                 
jupyterlab-kite >=2.0.2        

(I've tried omitting Kite to see if that was the culprit. In any case it is not present in the Binder versions.)

Versions

 3.9.13 (main, May 24 2022, 21:28:44) 
[Clang 13.0.0 (clang-1300.0.29.30)]
ipympl version: 0.9.1
Selected Jupyter core packages...
IPython          : 8.4.0
ipykernel        : 6.13.1
ipywidgets       : 7.7.0
jupyter_client   : 7.3.4
jupyter_core     : 4.10.0
jupyter_server   : 1.17.1
jupyterlab       : 3.4.3
nbclient         : 0.6.4
nbconvert        : 6.5.0
nbformat         : 5.4.0
notebook         : 6.4.12
qtconsole        : not installed
traitlets        : 5.2.2
Known nbextensions:
  config dir: /Users/Rax/.jupyter/nbconfig
    notebook section
      nbdime/index  enabled 
      - Validating: OK
  config dir: /Users/Rax/Documents/Projects/Coding/Python/venvs/picollisions/etc/jupyter/nbconfig
    notebook section
      jupyter-matplotlib/extension  enabled 
      - Validating: OK
      nbdime/index  enabled 
      - Validating: OK
      jupyter-js-widgets/extension  enabled 
      - Validating: OK
  config dir: /usr/local/etc/jupyter/nbconfig
    notebook section
      nbdime/index  enabled 
      - Validating: OK
JupyterLab v3.4.3
/Users/Rax/Documents/Projects/Coding/Python/venvs/picollisions/share/jupyter/labextensions
        jupyterlab_pygments v0.2.2 enabled OK (python, jupyterlab_pygments)
        nbdime-jupyterlab v2.1.1 enabled OK
        jupyter-matplotlib v0.11.1 enabled OK
        @jupyterlab/git v0.37.1 enabled OK (python, jupyterlab-git)
        @jupyter-widgets/jupyterlab-manager v3.1.0 enabled OK (python, jupyterlab_widgets)
        @kiteco/jupyterlab-kite v2.0.2 enabled OK (python, jupyterlab_kite)

Other labextensions (built into JupyterLab)
   app dir: /Users/Rax/Documents/Projects/Coding/Python/venvs/picollisions/share/jupyter/lab

Riproduci il workflow segnalato con le versioni elencate precedenti e successive all’aggiornamento, utilizzando i notebook Binder collegati e la configurazione dei widget ipympl/JupyterLab. Confronta la reattività dei widget e il posizionamento dei controlli prima e dopo l’aggiornamento. Il lavoro è completato quando viene identificato un errore di compatibilità riproducibile e viene verificato che i controlli della figura interattiva rispondano e compaiano nella posizione prevista.