MATLAB R2020a installer freezes on splash screen, how do I fix this?

I moved my matlab folder to a new drive and now it isn't working. I can't be fkd trying to sort it out so I am just downloading it again. The same thing is happening as when I tried to upgrade to 2020a before, and that is that the installer is hanging on the splash screen. Task manager lists it as using CPU power (around 12%), an avg. of 3 MB/s of the disk and a few hundred MB of ram. I've ran it as administrator, I have manually put in a R2020a folder into the MATLAB directory and I don't know what to do.

I need to use this software for uni, so a quick turn around would be nice as otherwise I won't be able to do my work in quarantine...

[drummer]

Expert users should properly your answer about the matlab folder. But what MATLAB folder are you moving? Installation or the one where you save your codes? If it is the 1st option, I think it won´t probaly work indeed, and you have to properly install where you want. The second you can always change the path in MATLAB.

Another topic: regarding running MATLAB in your place, you probably own an academic license from university. Do you have VPN access to University? You should run it before running MATLAB. Otherwise, it will do nothing. At least for me, it stops at the splash screen, and never loads the software.

Good luck.

Answer 1

[Kritika Singh]

This issue most of the time is due to MATLAB not being able to create the preferences directory in the default location.

The default location for the preferences directory would be :

C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\MathWorks\MATLAB

In this example, replace <username> with your username.

You can change the default location to a directory you do have access to:

How do I change the MATLAB preferences directory location?

This issue can also be related to the following article:

Why does MATLAB get stuck in the "Initializing" or "Busy" state or take a long time to start?

If you are still encountering this issue please Contact MathWorks support

http://www.mathworks.com/support/contact_us/index.html