Swing is not available in Mac High Sierra

I have recently purchased Arduino Engineering Kit and get an one year license to start using Matlab. I've followed the instruction to install Matlab on my Mac High Sierra.

First I could not start Matlab. I tried to start by command line still no luck.

Searched over the net, some suggested to start with -nojvm, this worked, however this also mean that I will stay in command line only as Matlab GUI all relies on Java AWT and Swing.

I decided to investigate more and realised that I should specify MATLAB_JAVA to either

/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_112.jdk/Contents/Home/jre

or

'/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin/Contents/Home' (quote for the space).

Now I can start Matlab with Java enabled. However I still cannot start with GUI. Whenever I start Matlab without -nodisplay option, it crashes:

/Applications/MATLAB_R2018a.app/bin $ ./matlab
Abort trap: 6
/Applications/MATLAB_R2018a.app/bin $

Then I found some articles mentioned Matlab relies on X window as well. So I went to XQuartz and install the latest version, tried to start Matlab under xterm, no luck.

Another try to go to macports and install xorg-server and use X11 to start Matlab, still no luck.

Lastly when I start ./matlab -nodisplay and enable desktop, it said Swing is not available.

/Applications/MATLAB_R2018a.app/bin $ ./matlab -nodisplay
>> ver
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MATLAB Version: 9.4.0.813654 (R2018a)
MATLAB License Number: Sponsored_Education
Operating System: Mac OS X  Version: 10.13.5 Build: 17F77 
Java Version: Java 10.0.1+10 with "Oracle Corporation" Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM mixed mode
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MATLAB                                                Version 9.4         (R2018a)
Simulink                                              Version 9.1         (R2018a)
Control System Toolbox                                Version 10.4        (R2018a)
Curve Fitting Toolbox                                 Version 3.5.7       (R2018a)
DSP System Toolbox                                    Version 9.6         (R2018a)
Image Processing Toolbox                              Version 10.2        (R2018a)
Instrument Control Toolbox                            Version 3.13        (R2018a)
Optimization Toolbox                                  Version 8.1         (R2018a)
Robotics System Toolbox                               Version 2.0         (R2018a)
Signal Processing Toolbox                             Version 8.0         (R2018a)
Simscape                                              Version 4.4         (R2018a)
Simscape Multibody                                    Version 5.2         (R2018a)
Stateflow                                             Version 9.1         (R2018a)
Symbolic Math Toolbox                                 Version 8.1         (R2018a)

>> desktop
Error using desktop (line 19)
desktop is not supported because:
Swing is not currently available.

>>

Anyone could share some thots to fix this? Thanks

[Walter Roberson]

I am not having problems with Swing not found, but I do find that on High Sierra, a short time after I start R2018a (apparently successfully), I get a crash.

R2017b works for me.

I see a hint it might be related to the fact I am using Parallels.

Answer 1

[Madhu Govindarajan]

I would recommend you reach out to MathWorks Technical support to get accurate information regarding different issues you are running into here. This is an installation related issue and hence should be supported no matter the license type.

[Frankie Kan]

Thanks, I just gave it another try. Installing Matlab from scratch and starting it up by command line, now the GUI comes up and bingo!

$ cd /Applications/MATLAB_R2018a.app/bin $ ./matlab -nosplash

Thanks for looking into my case!