Matlab R2020b freezes when closing figure (Intel macOS Big Sur)

Matlab R2020b Update 3 always freezes when closing a figure window containing any axes by using the top left closing button.

The operating system I am using is macOS Big Sur 11.1 on an Intel Mac Book Pro from mid-2017. No startup scripts are run.

On my system this can always be reproduced by opening Matlab 2020b and run the following command from the command window

figure; plot(1:10,1:10)

The figure opens as expected but using the red close button on the top left corner to close the window, Matlab instantly freezes and a spinning ball animation is shown. Matlab must be force quit then.

There is no problem closing the figure using the command

close(gcf)

This bug makes working with Matlab completely impossible to me. A similar behaviour could be seen on my system with previous Matlab versions like R2020a on macOS Mojave. But back then the bug was not so easy to reproduce. From time to time when closing a window belonging to Matlab it also froze.

[Frederik Blang]

I am having the exact same problem on two different machines both running macOS Catalina 10.15.7 and MATLAB R2020b Update 3. Closing any figure using the red close button makes MATLAB unresponsive and the only way to close it is to force quit. Using

close 1

or similar works however.

[Moritz Kb]

Same here. Maybe this will help.

https://de.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/646743-matlab-2020b-crashes-everytime-i-close-a-figure-manually#answer_543643

Haven’t tried any of the solutions yet. But there are a handful of different tricks.

Annoying because working with GUI software is impossible atm.

[jzdm]

Thank you, @Moritz Kb

Following your link I found this explanation, which seems to have led to the workaround (I will not call it a solution).

I have some Apps using the Accessibility API. For me it helped to disable AltTab. Which is unfortunate, as cycling through windows on MacOS is a mess.

Considering the price of Matlab it's a shame that Mathworks did not fix this bug existing at least since September 2019.

[Moritz Kb]

Ah well done! AltTab will probably fix it for me as well then. Thanks for sharing.

[Hongfu Sun]

absolutely ridiculous that MATLAB is not fixing this bug, for at least a couple of years. considering how much they charge for the software!

[Carl Werner]

I have this exact problem with 2021b on latest Monterey

[bazooka]

Same problem using 2022a and 2022b on different Macs: iMac 2021 M1 and Macbook Pro 2022 M2, both running OS-X 12.5 (Monterey). Any time I close a figure by pressing the red x button on the figure causes a freeze (hang) with the Mac beachball. Closing a figure using 'close' works sometimes, but sometimes also causes a freeze. I suspect a java problem. None of the suggestions below have helped resolve this problem.

After consulation with Mathworks, it turns out that, in my case, this occurred due to using Mac's Virtual Keyboard: "Using the Virtual Keyboard with MATLAB is not supported due to a known Java bug with accessibility."

[Enrico Onofri]

Unfortunately the same 'freezing after closing plots' occurs in the latest R2023b running under the most recent MacOs & Java software. This is quite annoying since I use Matlab in class and my programs are based on statistical visualizations. I'll try one of the workarounds.

Answer 1

[orenams]

I have the same proboem!

Answer 2

[Mario Andrés De los Santos]

I'm having the same problem :(

Answer 3

[Lakshmanan Swaminathan]

I do have the same problem with Matlab_R2020b running on M1 Macbook Pro with macOS Big Sur 11.3.1. Not just closing figures, it freezes in many occasions. And the only way is to force quit and reopen again leading to lose the progress of work.

Answer 4

[Radoslav Vargic]

Matlab 2021a update 3 in BigSur 11.4 has stiil the same problem !!!

[Margarethe Leopold]

Yes, I am also seriously frustrated right now. I need to force quite Matlab every third run of my scripts now. I mostly occurs when I press any key or when I click into the code editor while a figure is still being processed. Can we please finally get an official note on this bug by Mathworks and a proper timelime when it is expected to be fixes. I am spaming Apple with 10-15 crash reports per day now.

[Walter Roberson]

Mathworks has a bug report that says that some Big Sur crashes can be avoided by starting MATLAB from the Terminal instead of from Dock or icon.

[Kelly Kearney]

For the record, this figure-closing problem is not specific to Big Sur; I encounter it regularly with Matlab R2020b and I'm still using Mojave. My not particularly great solution has been to roll back to 2019a (the previous version I had installed) for the time being.

[Walter Roberson]

Odd, I have never observed it up to R2021a up to Catalina (I have not used my Big Sur system long enough to have an opinion)

[Kelly Kearney]

The bug is contingent on other software, so it may not manifest for all users. I'm pretty sure that in my case, it's coming from one of the many videoconferencing apps that I'm using far more these days than in previous years. Keeping those apps functional is a higher priority than running the latest and greatest Matlab, hence my rolling back.

Answer 5

[Kazuhiro Maeda]

I wrote a simple script. I hope it helps. I'm not sure this works for M1.

function figure_close_test()
% When you try to close figure windows, MATLAB for Mac sometimes gives you
% the rainbow cursor of death and hangs up. A walkaround is to turn off
% apps that use Mac's Accessibility API. Go to System Preferences >
% Security & Privacy > Privacy > Accessibility and unmark some apps there.
%  
% This script is helpful to identify the apps that cause the problem.
%  
% (1) Run this script. If it finishes without any problems, you don't have
%     the "can't close a figure" issue. Lucky you! If your MATLAB hangs up 
%     or becomes sluggish, go to (2).
%  
% (2) Turn off an app shown in Accessibility and go to (3).
%  
% (3) Run this script again. If you finished it without any problems, then
%     it is likely that the app you just turned off interferes with MATLAB.
%     So, it should be turned off while you use MATLAB (and ask MathWorks 
%     to fix this long-standing issue). If you got some problems while 
%     running this script, go back to (2) and turn off another app.
 
 
clear all;
close all;
 
for i = 1 : 10
    fprintf('%d: ',i)
    for j = 1 : 10
        fprintf('%d ',j)
        figure;
        plot([0,1,2],[0,1,2])
    end
    close all;
    fprintf('--- All figures closed\n')
end

In my case, RescueTime was the one that prevented MATLAB from closing a figure window.

[Vani Gupta]

Thanks a lot for this! It worked. I have Macbook M1 Air and for me it was Grammarly desktop.

[David Snyder]

Thank you!. This worked for my iMac with Catalina and 2021b. Unfortunately the culprit was SteerMouse--a utility that modifies mouse and scroll wheel behavior. It's the only utility I've found that allows me to properly use KiCAD and FreeCAD.

[Linjun He]

You saved my day!!!! Surprisingly it is Bartender causing this issue!!!

[俊彦]

Thank you so much! For me it is Contexts causing this issue.

[Jack Addie]

this worked brilliantly on my M1 2020 mac. Running R2022b incase thats of any use ot anyone. Cheers!

Answer 6

[Daniel Lau]

From this link, I followed the instructions for giving Matlab full disk access. Seems to have solved the problem.

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/480796-not-responding-on-startup-macos-mojave

[Bojeong Seo]

Unfortunately I did this but, it didn't solve my issue yet..

[Bo Liu]

It didn't work for me, either.

Answer 7

[Chenyang Zhang]

Go to Mac - System Preferences - Privacy - Accessibility

Try disabling some App here, and find which one cause the conflict to MATLAB. Then this problem can be avoided. As for my case, I disable the Grammarly and then all things go well.

Hope MATLAB can solve this problem.

[Preetham Manjunatha]

Yes, I confirm the culprit is Grammarly.

[Zhaocheng Wang]

I comfirm the culprit is Grammarly as well.

Answer 8

[Abdul Hannan Raja]

I am having this same problem on M1 Macbook Air with apple silicon chip. I have no idea what is causing this issue. I guess i am not alone anymore.

[jiayi su]

Yes, you are not alone.

[Peko Wang]

You are not alone. I have the same problem with my M1 Mac Mini; this post is helpful for me. Specifically, there is a bug caused by some conflict between the Grammarly app and Matlab, but every time you manually close the fig, you need to quit Grammarly, and setting Grammarly not enabled on Matlab is also invalid, which is very inconvenient, so I still use the "close" command.

[Bojeong Seo]

@Peko Wang Thank you so much!! I was frastrauted by this issue and just solve the issue by quitting Grammarly app!!

Answer 9

[Tahmid Hassan Talukdar]

Havint this same problem. Hope MathWorks fixes this soon. I'm unable to do any work due to this.

Answer 10

[Dmitry Kabanov]

I have the same problem on macos Big Sur 11.4 with Matlab R2021a 9.10.0.1602886 on Intel iMac Pro 2017.

Matlab is unusable as it hangs when I close a figure.

Answer 11

[Daniel Lau]

I am having this problem too on an Intel Mac Pro 2013 with Matlab R2021a.

Answer 12

[Preetham Manjunatha]

Same problem macOS Monterey v12.1. MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2018), Processor: 2.9 GHz 6-Core Intel Core i9 and Memory: 32 GB 2400 MHz DDR4.

[Mario Andrés De los Santos]

This means that is not an Apple silicon issue, is a MacOs compatibility problem

[Preetham Manjunatha]

Yes, I think so. It is macOS and MATLAB compatability issue.

Answer 13

[Kazuhiro Maeda]

Same here.

MATLAB R2021a

Big Sur 11.6.1

Mac Pro (2019)

After "close all" or clicking the left-top red "x" button of a figure window, a rainbow cursor of death appears and MATLAB hangs up. This happens not always but occasionally. So, it's difficult to find why this happens.

I just read this post and turned off Accessibility Permissions for some apps. I hope this will work. This "Accecibility problem" has been around for years (like this), and I don't understand why MathWorks devs don't fix it.

I think MathWorks should implement a better bug report program (or even telemetery program). If MATLAB hangs up, the bug report dialog doesn't appear. So, they never notice this issue.

Answer 14

[Edgar Torres]

My Macbook Pro (2019, Intel, Big Sur v.11.6.3) suffers from this issue as well, the "close all" command does work though. Although granting Matlab full disk access to your mac will not work, I already tried it. @MathWorks Support Team really needs to fix this.

[Hao Chen]

Do you use Grammarly? After I close Grammarly, it's fixed!

[Edgar Torres]

oh really? I haven't thought of that, will try it then.

Answer 15

[Richard So]

I found that downgrading to R2019b resolves the issue. Alt-Tab was the culprit on my end, but I was not willing to close the app just for Matlab. If downgrading still does not help, try using even earlier versions and see if it works.

Answer 16

[Preetham Manjunatha]

MATLAB R2022a still freezes when the Figure window is closed on macOS 12.3.

Answer 17

[Nazyar Mehdishishavan]

just by quiting grammerly, my problem was solved

[Guillermo Romero]

The same here

Answer 18

[Carl Werner]

Yes - Grammarly and my window manager app, Rectangle make Matlab lose its mind. The window manager Magnet, also does not coexist well with Matlab.

Answer 19

[Qi Wang]

Same issue for me. Problem solved after I disable the "voice control" in the System Preferences. Hope this helps

Answer 20

[Sorinel Oprisan]

For me it was Grammarly Desktop.app

Answer 21

[Pistachio]

Same problem for me.

In my case, MATLAB often freezes when closing a number of heavy figures.

The cause of this problem is most probably that MATLAB goes on the next closing process before completing current closing process that takes some time due to the large data set included in the figures. In this case, close each figure by “for” followed by a command such as “disp” and “waitbar”. But “1+1” doesn't work. Though “pause(n)” does work, I don't recommend this, because optimum time is not known. I prefer “waitbar” to “disp” because I don't like a mess in command window, but “waitbar” can be replaced by “disp” or something. Accordingly, I solved this issue by following function.

function closeall

h = findobj('Type','Figure');
I0 = numel(h);
if I0==0
    return
elseif I0==1
    close(h)
else
    msg = ['Closing ' num2str(I0) ' figures.'];
    f = waitbar(0,msg);
    for i0 = 1:I0
        close(h(i0))
        waitbar(i0/I0,f, ['Closing ' num2str(I0) ' figures... (' num2str(i0) '/' num2str(I0) ')'])
    end
    delete(f)
end

end