Why is MatLab crashing and not displaying plots?

For the past week I have been working on and running a code in MatLab. Yesterday, I ran the completed code and it worked perfectly and displayed all of my graphs. I have been working on a FFT graph using a audio file (wav). It is then converted into an FFT, then a Power Spectral density graph using pwelch, and finally a spectrogram. Fs for the PSD and spectrogram were 44100 and N was 5000; it filled in the y value for me. I had previous ran the FFT for the same file and it used that y value. All of a sudden today, it will not graph any plots. It says "MatLab has turned off the plots because of a resolution issue and to click for more details." It also gives me several java errors in the command window. I tried to copy and paste the code into a new live script window. I ran the code there and it went extremely slow and stopped. It then gave me a message that "MatLab has crashed because of internal problems and to close the program." This has happened several times. It also gave me a send report choice, but I declined because I thought restarting MatLab or my computer might help; it did not. Now it won't show the "send report to MatLab' option. I try to close out of the program and it says "it's busy and will close after a certain time limit." It goes well past this limit and never closes. It only closes if I exit the editor and try closing again. It again gives me the same busy message but eventually closes if I keep pressing it. I've had to reinstall the program before for similar issues, but I can't keep uninstalling and reinstalling this program. Can anyone help with these issues?

Answer 1

[Jan]

All details you can provide is that the problem occurred "suddenly" and that there is a "resolution problem". This is very few information. But even with more details, I'd suggest the standard procedure:

1. What has changes since the code ran? A Windows update? Check it in the event logs and update history. If so, try to uninstall it.
2. Another source of troubles could be a Java update under MacOS (as far as I know).
3. Or the Matlab files have been damaged. This would be evil, but it can happen. Compare the Matlab installation folder with the contents of your backup. Try to restore the contents of the folder to the status of yesterday.
4. If this does not work, reinstall Matlab.
5. Under rare conditions, the preferences can cause troubles. This is not likely, but easy to test. Rename the files in the preferences folder. Unfortunately you didn't mention your Matlab version or operating system, but perhaps you find it in: C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\MathWorks\MATLAB . See Where is prefdir.
6. Check the health of your hard disk.
7. You should find the error messages in your event log, although they are not sent to MathWorks.

What do you learn from this problem?

1. Keep proper backups.
2. Create copies of all error messages, when they are available.

 Why is MatLab crashing and not displaying plots?

There is no chance that the members of the forum can guess this based on the information you have provided.

[Steven Lord]

To add to Jan's point 1: Since the original failure mentioned a resolution problem, in addition to checking for a Windows update I would check for a graphics driver update.

One additional point 8: Even if you can't automatically send the crash log files to MathWorks, I recommend locating them and sending them to Support using the Contact Us link in the upper-right corner of this page.