MATLAB unresponsive on startup

Whenever I start Matlab, it is unresponsive for around 3-5mins. So far I have tried the following

1. removeDriveFromHistory - As someone pointed out this could help.
2. Reinstalling Matlab

None of this has worked. I also tried to reset the preferences, to make sure corrupted preferences aren't causing it. But no luck. Can anyone please help me with it?

Machine Specs :- Intel i7-11 gen, 16 GB Ram, SSD. Windows installation

Answer 1

[Dhruv Thakkar]

I figured out the issue, there was another software using the LM_LICENSE_FILE which was causing matlab to become unresponsive. As I am not using the other software anymore, deleting the LM_LICENSE_FILE variable solved it.

[Image Analyst]

Some questions:

1. What was the actual full name of the license file that the other program was using?
2. What was the name of the other program that was using your MATLAB license file?
3. Why would some software, unrelated to MATLAB, be using a file that is unique to MATLAB?

[Dhruv Thakkar]

It was an environment variable that I had created in order for the license manager to retrieve the license from the server. For some reasons unknown to me, when I ran the following in Matlab

matlab.internal.licensing.pathTest

It was also trying to retrieve a license from the same server as in LM_LICENSE_FILE. This was causing the delay. The other software is IBM Rhapsody, whose license I borrow from my university's server.

Answer 2

[Jan]

Try to recreate the preferences folder:

C:\Users\<USERNAME>\AppData\Roaming\MathWorks\MATLAB\<VERSION>

Rename this folder and start Matlab. It is created with default values the first time. Does this change the delay?

Your hard disk might have a damage and reading a certain file can cause severe activities. Check this with CHKDSK and a tool like CrystalDiskInfo.

What is the contents of your startup.m file? Does it contain any tedious commands?

[Dhruv Thakkar]

Hey Jan, thanks for the quick reponse. Resetting the preferences didn't work.

I seemed to have figured out the issue, apparently its a license error. If I run

"path-to-Matlab/matlab.exe" -c <path-to-license>

It startsup almost instantly. Any way I can make it to read the local license by default?