Why is app designer not opening?

I am unable to open app designer. I am running Mac OS Sierra with MATLAB 2016b. When I click on opening a new app designer script a MATLAB window icon appears in my dock, but a window does not appear.

[Cristian Velasquez]

Did you solve this?

[Walter Roberson]

Data point: it seems to work for me in OS-X Sierra with R2016b

[Chris Portal]

Can you offer some insights on the following...

Are you opening an app from 16a?

If you only try to open the app designer desktop environment by calling "appdesigner", instead of a specific app, does the desktop open?

If you open the app by calling "h = myapp", do you get an object back that you can use to reposition the UIFigure inside of it?

[Owen Gebler]

I'm having the same issue, running Sierra 10.12 and Matlab 2016b. Calling 'appdesigner' from the command window seems to do nothing. Calling my app directly will run it, and I can create a handle to the app figure object.

[Joshua Welsh]

I am unable to open the app designer window whether I use the appdesigner command, or go to the new script in the toolbar. I have not been trying to open a specific app.

[Walter Roberson]

So far all of the reports seem to be about Sierra. Is anyone having this difficulty on a non-Sierra system? Is anyone having this difficulty on a version other than R2016b ?

The people who are having this difficulty: what is your regional setting? getenv('LANG') And have you installed the Sierra patch?

[Owen Gebler]

I'm in the UK and therefore didn't install the Sierra patch as I shouldn't be affected. My Matlab language is 'en_GB'

[Elliot Wolf]

I spoke with Technical Support this morning to resolve the same problem...appdesigner program would not launch, only a blank AppDesigner window.

Here were the instructions provided by Tech Support specialist:

1) type prefdir into the MatLab command window prompt

2) it should return a directory folder location, for example, C:\Users\Name\AppData\Roaming\MathWorks\MATLAB\R2016b

3) rename this existing folder to C:\Users\Name\AppData\Roaming\MathWorks\MATLAB\R2016b_old

4) Create a new folder with the same original name C:\Users\Name\AppData\Roaming\MathWorks\MATLAB\R2016b

5) Close and re-start MatLab

Something about the files get weird/corrupted and this creates a new empty folder that it writes files to.

Good Luck!

[Till Späth]

I am having the same problem and need a solution urgently, did someone find out about it?

[Walter Roberson]

Elliot Wolf's solution looks promising.

[Sean de Wolski]

Elliot's solution should work but it might also be overkill, which is why I'd recommend looking into some of the settings in the preference directory.

[Deandra Dsouza]

I had a similar problem as well and followed Elliot Wolf's solution. It worked! Thanks!

[Daan Decleer]

Elliots answer worked! Thank for that, I really needed it.

[Frederick Brooks]

I had this problem also on a Windows 10 machine, and Elliot's solution worked wonderfully.

[Jacopo Elia]

Elliot Wolf solution worked for me! Thank you!

[Muhammad Asif]

Unfortunatly Elliot Wolf solution doesn't work for me

[Kajal Srivastava]

I am having the same problem in R2018b on my windows device

Answer 1

[StephenJ]

I was having the exact same problem (2016b, OS Sierra), which appeared when I had entered full-screen mode while connected to projector. In MATLAB click on new app designer script or open existing mlapp file, icon should appear in the dock. Then Menu->Enter full screen, app designer will show up, if not, swipe on your trackpad until designer window pops out, then reset it by closing MATLAB Window from the top menu. Worked in my case. Btw I tried changing the matlabpref.mat as suggested by Sean, it did not work itself, but there still might be a correlation with my solution as I didn't change the setting back.

[Joshua Welsh]

This fixed it. Thanks!

[Neil]

Had the problem with 2016b and El Capitan. This worked.

[Oleg Komarov]

Had problem on Mac OS Sierra and R2016b. This fixes.

[Grace Enamorado]

Where do you find "menu -> Enter full screen"

[Monika Jaskolka]

I had this issue on Windows 10. This answer worked for me.

I hovered over the problematic window in the dock, right-clicked on it, and selected Maximize.

[pacman]

Thank you so much ;-;

Answer 2

[Ron Fredericks]

Monika Jaskolka's comment within the question worked for me:

Windows 10:

• Hover over the MATLAB icon in the task bar - wait for windows to show, including the missing app designer window,
• Right-click on app designer window, and select Maximize.

[Patrick]

I am experiencing the same issue detailed above. When I click on the icon in the dock, 'Maximize' isn't even an option. This is what I see:

[Claudio Piguet]

@Patrick do not click on the icon but on the preview window which appears when hovering over the icon. This is a really annoying issue. Btw. if you maximize the window and then drag and drop the window bar (at the top) the issue is fixed for a while.

[Patrick]

Nothing happens when I click on the preview window. The app is open, but off the screen so I can't even drag it

[Patrick]

I found that deleted the MATLAB preferences folder resets everything and it works properly now.

[JEONGHUN IM]

thank for this answer

Answer 3

[Xulai Xu]

Someone please answer this I encountered the same problem. Tried everything, nothing worked

Answer 4

[Sean de Wolski]

cd(prefdir)
load('matlabprefs.mat')

What are the settings in

Preferences.appdesigner

They should look something like this

ans = 
struct with fields:

            ShowIntroDialog: 0
                   Position: [1 1 112 0]
                  Maximized: 1
           ShowCodeViewTips: 0
    ShowCompatibilityDialog: 0

If not: Try, changing Maximized to true or Position to something like mine above, save back to matlabprefs.mat and restart MATLAB.

[Owen Gebler]

Sean, if I set 'Maximised' to 1 and then try to call appdesigner it opens fine. However this change doesn't persist if I restart Matlab, even if I save the changes to the preferences mat file

[Joshua Welsh]

Sean, I altered my position and maximized settings as you per your example, I was still unable to open App Designer.

[George A.]

The correct answer, at least what worked for me, is a combination of Sean's and StephenJ's answer.

First, do what StephenJ says and get the correct Position from the Preferences.appdesigner struct. Then, use this position in the old matlab's prefdir.

The Position=[1 1 112 0] didn't work for me.

[David Mellinger]

I can't get appdesigner to start at all. I type 'appdesigner' and nothing at all happens -- I just get another command prompt. No windows appear, neither maximized nor minimized. Same when I choose Home->New->App in the ribbon (perhaps this is just like typing appdesigner). I'm using R2019b in Win10 Pro.

I tried Elliot's solution -- moving C:\Users\<myname>\AppData\Roaming\MathWorks\MATLAB\R2019b to R2019b_old, re-creating the directory, and restarting -- but that didn't change anything. If I try

cd(prefdir); load('matlabprefs.mat'); Preferences.appdesigner

then I just get an error, "Reference to non-existent field 'appdesigner'." My Preferences struct has only one field, MATLABZoom, perhaps because I've never successfully started appdesigner.

Suggestions?

[Thomas Hermelin]

Did you solve your problem ? I have exactly the same

[Eric Delgado]

% My solution for a similar issue:
opengl('save', 'hardwarebasic')

[Eric Delgado]

Different ways to handle this issue:

• Update Windows 10 version
• Update graphics driver

[Alexander]

>> cd(prefdir)

load('matlabprefs.mat')

>> Preferences.appdesigner

Unrecognized field name "appdesigner"

I have the same issue of blank screen on startup

Answer 5

[Shehzad Ahmed]

hello,

my appdesigner is not working anymore. I need help for my projekt.

I keep getting this error-code.

please Help.

Ich brauche Hilfe beim Öfnnen des AppDesigners.

dieser Fehler wird mir immer angezeigt.