Why do I receive Java lang errors after starting MATLAB R14?

The following error messages appear in the MATLAB Command Window after MATLAB is started:

 java.lang.ExceptionInInitializerError

 at java.lang.Class.forName0(Native Method)

 at java.lang.Class.forName(Unknown Source)

 at com.mathworks.mlservices.MLHelpServices.getDocRoot(MLHelpServices.java:372)

 at com.mathworks.mlwidgets.util.productinfo.ProductInfoUtils.getAbsolutePath(ProductInfoUtils.java:847)

 at com.mathworks.mlwidgets.util.productinfo.ProductInfoUtils.parseFile(ProductInfoUtils.java:420)

 at com.mathworks.mlwidgets.util.productinfo.ProductInfoUtils.parseAllFiles(ProductInfoUtils.java:460)

 at com.mathworks.mlwidgets.util.productinfo.ProductInfoUtils.pathChanged(ProductInfoUtils.java:342)

 at com.mathworks.mlwidgets.util.productinfo.ProductInfoUtils.<init>(ProductInfoUtils.java:288) ...

This behavior was seen on Windows 2000 and XP.

Another similar error message on Linux is as follows:

 sun.io.MalformedInputException

    at sun.io.ByteToCharGB18030.convert(Unknown Source)

    at sun.nio.cs.StreamDecoder$ConverterSD.convertInto(Unknown Source)

    at sun.nio.cs.StreamDecoder$ConverterSD.implRead(Unknown Source)

    at sun.nio.cs.StreamDecoder.read(Unknown Source)

    at java.io.InputStreamReader.read(Unknown Source)

    at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLEntityManager$EntityScanner.load(XMLEntityManager.java:3186)

    at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLEntityManager$EntityScanner.skipString(XMLEntityManager.java:2948)

    at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLDocumentScannerImpl$XMLDeclDispatcher.dispatch(XMLDocumentScannerImpl.java:563) ...

Answer 1

[MathWorks Support Team]

This bug has been fixed for Release 14 SP1 (R14SP1). For previous releases, please read below for any possible workarounds:

This error is ocurring because of a corrupt preference setting in the MATLAB preferences file. To fix this problem, start MATLAB and run the following statement in the Command Window, after the exceptions display:

com.mathworks.services.Prefs.setStringPref('HelpSelectedProducts','MATLAB');

After running the statement, quit MATLAB and then restart it. The problem should be fixed.