How to prevent Matlab from freezing when doc help is opened?

I have R2013b and 22 figure windows are open. When I use doc at the command line to open help windows (for figure and print), Matlab freezes: I can resize Matlab windows but can't type into them. Other applications besides Matlab (streaming radio station) continue to work as usual. This has happened twice so it's not a temporary glitch. Any suggestions on how to eliminate a Matlab freezeup when I use doc ?

Answer 1

[Adam]

This was fixed in 2014a.

There was a solution for 2013b that I read somewhere (though I'm afraid I can't remember where) which uses a different style of help (a lot less nice than the usual version and with fewer features).

So if you can upgrade to R2014a. If not hopefully someone else can direct you to the help page to solve that.

[K E]

Fixed the problem perfectly (and discovered that it's possible to port a path from one version to the next using this solution, which is why I hadn't updated in the first place).

Answer 2

[Yu Jiang]

That seems to be a bug. You can find the bug report and a workaround here:

http://www.mathworks.com/support/bugreports/870843

-Yu Jiang

[K E]

Should have mentioned, this is for a Windows system, sorry! When I upgraded to R2014a as Adam suggested, the problem was eliminated.