diff --git a/src/plots/plots.js b/src/plots/plots.js
index 541c3333826..9210dde800a 100644
--- a/src/plots/plots.js
+++ b/src/plots/plots.js
@@ -2887,6 +2887,9 @@ plots.doCalcdata = function(gd, traces) {
     // Sort axis categories per value if specified
     var sorted = sortAxisCategoriesByValue(axList, gd);
     if(sorted.length) {
+        // how many box/violins plots do we have (in case they're grouped)
+        fullLayout._numBoxes = 0;
+        fullLayout._numViolins = 0;
         // If a sort operation was performed, run calc() again
         for(i = 0; i < sorted.length; i++) calci(sorted[i], true);
         for(i = 0; i < sorted.length; i++) calci(sorted[i], false);
diff --git a/test/image/baselines/box_grouped_mean_descending.png b/test/image/baselines/box_grouped_mean_descending.png
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..62d34272637
Binary files /dev/null and b/test/image/baselines/box_grouped_mean_descending.png differ
diff --git a/test/image/mocks/box_grouped_mean_descending.json b/test/image/mocks/box_grouped_mean_descending.json
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..e653073d373
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/image/mocks/box_grouped_mean_descending.json
@@ -0,0 +1,119 @@
+{
+   "data":[
+      {
+         "y":[
+            0.2,
+            0.2,
+            0.6,
+            1,
+            0.5,
+            0.4,
+            0.2,
+            0.7,
+            0.9,
+            0.1,
+            0.5,
+            0.3
+         ],
+         "x":[
+            "day 1",
+            "day 1",
+            "day 1",
+            "day 1",
+            "day 1",
+            "day 1",
+            "day 2",
+            "day 2",
+            "day 2",
+            "day 2",
+            "day 2",
+            "day 2"
+         ],
+         "name":"kale",
+         "marker":{
+            "color":"#3D9970"
+         },
+         "type":"box"
+      },
+      {
+         "y":[
+            0.6,
+            0.7,
+            0.3,
+            0.6,
+            0,
+            0.5,
+            0.7,
+            0.9,
+            0.5,
+            0.8,
+            0.7,
+            0.2
+         ],
+         "x":[
+            "day 1",
+            "day 1",
+            "day 1",
+            "day 1",
+            "day 1",
+            "day 1",
+            "day 2",
+            "day 2",
+            "day 2",
+            "day 2",
+            "day 2",
+            "day 2"
+         ],
+         "name":"radishes",
+         "marker":{
+            "color":"#FF4136"
+         },
+         "type":"box"
+      },
+      {
+         "y":[
+            0.1,
+            0.3,
+            0.1,
+            0.9,
+            0.6,
+            0.6,
+            0.9,
+            1,
+            0.3,
+            0.6,
+            0.8,
+            0.5
+         ],
+         "x":[
+            "day 1",
+            "day 1",
+            "day 1",
+            "day 1",
+            "day 1",
+            "day 1",
+            "day 2",
+            "day 2",
+            "day 2",
+            "day 2",
+            "day 2",
+            "day 2"
+         ],
+         "name":"carrots",
+         "marker":{
+            "color":"#FF851B"
+         },
+         "type":"box"
+      }
+   ],
+   "layout":{
+      "xaxis": {
+          "categoryorder": "mean descending"
+      },
+      "yaxis":{
+         "zeroline":false,
+         "title":"normalized moisture"
+      },
+      "boxmode":"group"
+   }
+}