Matlab very slow to startup in SCIF with no network access

We installed R2016b and it ran normally. All models transferred were created in R2013a, it was too hard to fix quickly so we installed R2013a to get operational sooner. Every time I startup the R2013a version it takes about 10 minutes to come to the Matlab prompt. Clearly this is not PC hardware or configuration related, R2016b worked file. We are running in a SCIF with a license file and no internet access.

How can I troubleshoot the problem?

[Walter Roberson]

"SCIF" appears likely to refer to "Secure Compartimented Information Facility" for this purpose.

Answer 1

[Sam McDonald]

Here are a few steps you can try:

1. Use the "timing" run-time option to get more information about which specific portion of the startup is slow. To do this, you can run MATLAB from the Windows command prompt:

(a) Click on the Windows "Start" menu, type in "cmd", and press "Enter"

(b) Inside the command prompt, navigate to the "bin" folder inside the MATLAB R2015b directory:

> cd C:\Program Files\MATLAB\R2013a\bin

(Note that you may need to adjust this path for your system)

(c) Execute the following command inside the Windows command prompt window:

> matlab -timing

This will start MATLAB and automatically record the time taken for each startup task. When the startup completes, you will see a log outputted inside the MATLAB Command window that summarizes the timing results. Note that this will also create a text log file noted at the top of the output.

2. In the output of the timing results from Step 1 above, check if the "InitSunVM" task is taking a large amount of time to complete. If so, this might be related to the McAfee Virus Protection. If this is applicable to your system, there is a MATLAB Answers post that details a quick fix to resolve this issue:

http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/22384#answer_30258

3. Check if you have code being executed in a "startup.m" file. To access this, you can execute the command below inside the MATLAB Command Window:

>> edit startup.m

If the file is not empty, you can go through the code to determine if any function calls or operations inside may be slowing your startup procedure.

4. In the MATLAB toolstrip, click on "Home" and then on the "Preferences" button. Inside the "Preferences" window, select "MATLAB -> General" on the left-hand side. On the right-hand side, verify that "Enable toolbox path cache" is enabled (it should be enabled by default).

5. Also inside the "Preferences" window, select "MATLAB > General > Source Control". If you do not use any form of source-control integration, you can select "None" on the right-hand side and then apply the changes.

Answer 2

[David Bridenstine]

I am running R2013a 64 bit in a SCIF, I cannot send outputs or any files from inside easily

1. Here are my hand typed results of running with –timings. I don’t understand why the last left number is not much larger:

total   item     gap      description
=====================================
<not significant time>
1.54   0.52 0.25     mljInit           
41.07 38.76 0.00     StartDesktop      
<not significant time>
44.96 3.89 41.07     Init Desktop        
74.36 32.28 0.67     matlabpath        
503.46 0.06 429.04   matlabpath  
<not significant time>
505.52 463.65 0.45   matlabrc

=====================================

2. R2013a has totally different preferences than described. There is not MATLAB -> General only General in the preferences window and I could not find “Enable toolbox path cache” anywhere in the preferences wizard.

3. I modified our custom startup.m script to do nothing and re-ran the –timing test – it still was a very slow startup with smaller matlabpath entries and the last line was:

468.47 427.310.06 matlabrc

Can’t see any help with what was provided. Can you diagnose based on the hand-type output? Where is the “cache” entry in 2013a64bit Matlab? Do you have any other ideas?

David Bridenstine

Answer 3

[Walter Roberson]

Is it possible that at some point you configured a networked license server? If so then you can get noticeable delays when MATLAB examines the license information, sees that it is to talk to a server, tries to communicate with the server, waits for timeout, gets the timeout and falls over to use the license file.

Is it possible that your MATLAB path refers to a networked filesystem that might be slow or absent? Use pathtool to examine the path .

restoredefaultpath

should clean the path up at least temporarily; you can save that clean path.

Answer 4

[David Bridenstine]

How do I removed the possible configuration for a networked license server, we are using a static license file now.

[Walter Roberson]

Have a look at https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/99147-where-are-the-license-files-for-matlab-located

and be sure to cross-check the LM_LICENSE_FILE environment variable that it mentions there.