Matlab R2012b - Java Exception, Error Starting Desktop

Hi folks,

I updated my Matlab R2012b on my Ubuntu system (11.04). The installation process went smoothly, but when I want to start Matlab, I encounter the following error, before the programm shuts down.

java.lang.runtimeexception: std::exception for "matlab.desktop.currentfolder.GroupColumn": Cannot write to the level specified even after multiple times of retry. It'S mostly due to no write permission.

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/Yk3wD4fhNSRm-Y0YLHlTxQfLKLkXu8MkJGSj38j_Nw0?feat=directlink

It seems to be a rights or ownership problem because if I start Matlab with the sudo command, it starts up fine. I could not find the libary or the file Matlab tries to edit. Any ideas?

thanks

Bart

[Timothy Hilton]

Same thing happens to me on a macbook. Same exception, exception disappears when starting matlab using sudo. Any help appreciated!

-Tim

Answer 1

[Jordan Schmidt]

Most likely you don't have write permissions on your preferences directory. You can determine the location of the MATLAB preferences folder by running the PREFDIR command at the MATLAB prompt. If for some reason you're unable to fix the permissions, you can try changing the prefs directory location:

http://www.mathworks.com/support/solutions/en/data/1-37KDWN/

[Bart Geurten]

thanks a lot Jordan. This fixed the problem for me. I just changed the ownership on the preference directory with the chown command to my account.

Answer 2

[Jonathan Wang]

following command could also solve your issue:

sudo chmod -R a+rw ~/.matlab

You need option "-R" here to apply the change to all of its sub-folders too.

Hope it helps. :-)

[Matt]

thanks, this worked for me. Wonder how it got messed up, last week there was no problem....

[Freddy Mendoza]

This also works for me with MATLAB R2012b on Ubuntu 12.04

thanks!!

[Markus Schmidt]

Correct solution for MATLAB R2013a on ubuntu 12.04.2.

I tried to start via terminal a second instance of matlab with a different user. Perhaps this messed up my profile...

[Saleh]

Thanks! Correct solution for MATLAB R2012b on Mac OS X 10.9.4. I tried to run MATLAB from terminal using 'sudo' command. After that I was getting the same error. This fixed the problem.

[Fan Meng]

Thanks a lot! It works on for Matlab 2014a on Ubuntu 15.04.

[Jonathan Lee]

Thanks! Correct solution for Matlab 2014b on ubuntu 14.04

[Vahid Daneshmand]

Thanks a lot! That worked for me for MATLAB R2015a on UBUNTU 15.04. :-)

[Taiping]

Thanks! It works for Matlab 2014a on ubuntu 12.04 LTS

[Deepashree Gurumurthy]

Thank you !! worked for Matlab 2016a on Ubuntu 14.04 ! :)

[Keyu Wu]

Thank you !! worked for Matlab 2017a on Ubuntu 16.04 ! :)

[Hector Gabriel Rodriguez]

Thank you !! worked for Matlab 2016b on Ubuntu 17.04 ! :)

[Spyridon Daskalakis]

Thank you mate !! worked for Matlab 2017b on Ubuntu 16.04 ! :)

[Rajdeep Bhattacharjee]

Thanks for this wonderful solution :-) | Matlab R2017b Ubuntu 16.06

[John Emad]

THANK YOU ... worked on matlab R17b ubuntu 16.04