Why do I see "The RPC server is unavailable" when calling 'actxserver' from MATLAB?

I am using 'actxserver' in MATLAB to create a COM automation server to interact with Microsoft applications such as Word an Excel. However, when I try to execute my script for the second time, I will encounter the following error:

The RPC server is unavailable

Answer 1

[MathWorks Support Team]

Reasons why you are seeing the "The RPC server is unavailable" error upon the second run of your script could be that:

(1) You are not properly closing the COM server at the end of your script. Please make sure your code looks like this:

e = actxserver('Excel.Application');
% interact with COM server
Quit(e)
delete(e)

See the following documentation for an example:

https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/matlab_external/using-a-matlab-application-as-an-automation-client.html

(2) You are not waiting long enough between the first and second runs of your script. It takes time for COM servers to quit, and if you try to create a new COM server while the previous one is being terminated, the new COM server will get attached to the old COM server.