Crash on launch with OSX version

Hi everybody. I'm having a problem with the 2011 version of MATLAB for mac OS X.

I've successfully installed MATLAB, but whenever i try to launch it i get the following error message:

Process:         MATLAB [7427]
Path:            /Applications/MATLAB_R2011a.app/Contents/MacOS/StartMATLAB
Identifier:      com.mathworks.matlab
Version:         MATLAB Release 2011a (2.1)
Code Type:       X86-64 (Native)
Parent Process:  launchd [543]

Date/Time:       2011-10-12 12:35:46.502 +0200
OS Version:      Mac OS X 10.6.8 (10K549)
Report Version:  6

Interval Since Last Report:          207054 sec
Crashes Since Last Report:           4
Per-App Interval Since Last Report:  4 sec
Per-App Crashes Since Last Report:   5
Anonymous UUID:                      F88CAF44-EFCB-42B4-971A-D6B81611AE12

Exception Type:  EXC_BREAKPOINT (SIGTRAP)
Exception Codes: 0x0000000000000002, 0x0000000000000000
Crashed Thread:  0

Dyld Error Message:
  Library not loaded: /usr/X11/lib/libXext.6.dylib
  Referenced from: /Applications/MATLAB_R2011a.app/bin/maci64/libmwhg.dylib
  Reason: image not found

followed by a bunch of other code.

It looks like it can't find the /usr/X11/lib/libXext.6.dylib file. As you can see I've OSX 10.6.8 where X11 should be native.

What can i do?

[Walter Roberson]

Please report this to TMW support. There is free support for installation problems.

Answer 1

[Brian Arnold]

This sounds like a configuration issue.

Check if the file reported missing is indeed missing from Terminal, by typing 'ls /usr/X11/lib/libXext.6.dylib'. It will be present on any Mac OS X version that has X11 properly installed (including OS X 10.6 which you are using, and 10.7 which I am using). If it is indeed missing, consider re-installing Mac OS X, ensuring that the X11 optional install is checked.

X11 has never been truly native on the Mac platform, and has had an uneven history of being included with the OS X Installer, but it changed from being an opt-in optional install to an opt-out optional install since around Leopard OS X 10.5, so it's surprising that you're running into this issue.