Failed to run matlab gui in Fedora 42

os: Fedora 42

DE: KDE Plasma 6.3.4

WM: KWin (Wayland)

Kernel: Linux 6.14.2-300.fc42.x86_64

Everything works well in Fedora 41, but I cannot run matlab After upgrading to Fedora 42. And get the output below.

MATLAB is selecting SOFTWARE rendering.
Unable to communicate with required MathWorks services (error 5201).

Troubleshoot this issue by visiting:
https://www.mathworks.com/support/lme/5201

I have read this Why do I receive Error 5201 - Unable to access services required to run MATLAB, reinstalled MathWorksServiceHost and reboot my computer. Those cannot solve. The autostart script of Mathworks Service Host always crash. See the output below:

[Jakub]

Note, that Fedora is no supported OS.

You can try the XFCE desktop environment.

[Conor Burgess]

XFCE is a Desktop which you can use on various Linux distros; using XFCE doesn't guarantee that you are using a supported distribution. Our supported Linux distributions are shown here.

Answer 1

[Conor Burgess]

This is due to changes in glibc 2.41 which have impacted dynamic library loading. The latest MathWorks Service Host release (2025.5.0.3) should resolve this - it wasn't released when you tried the first time, but if you follow the instructions in this answer to run the MathWorks Service Host reinstaller again, it will ensure you have the latest version and should resolve this issue.

[Mathis]

This fixed matlab for me. I had the same problem and I just ran the ReinstallMathWorksServiceHost executable and now matlab starts again. Thank you.

[Ruth]

I have also upgraded Fedora 41 to Fedora 42, and this broke my Matlab installation. Unfortunately reinstalling the Mathworks Service Host hasn't fixed the problem for me.

When I tried to run ReinstallMathWorksServiceHost I had the error

/tmp/mwse_2996772494/bin/glnxa64/InstallMathWorksServiceHost: error while loading shared libraries: libgtk-x11-2.0.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

I followed the manual reinstallation instructions and tried to re-open Matlab but still receive the error

    Unable to communicate with required MathWorks services (error 5201).

[Conor Burgess]

Thanks - we'll look into the missing library issue - it seems to be due to an incorrect rpath in the executable. In the meantime, this command should install the required library and get the reinstaller working:

sudo dnf install libgtk2.0-0

EDIT: per below, this should be:

sudo dnf install gtk2

[Ruth]

I cannot get libgtk2.0-0 on Fedora 42. As far as I can tell it is only available for Debian and Ubuntu.

[Conor Burgess]

Apologies, it looks like the package may be named gtk2 on Fedora, so it would be:

sudo dnf install gtk2

[Ruth]

Thank you, that worked.

[Maria del Carmen]

Hi @Conor Burgess not sure I can follow up on this question in this forum. I have the exact same problem for a different Linux distribution:

Debian 13 Trixie

Kernel 6.12.41+deb13-amd64

KDE Plasma Version 6.3.6

I suspect the answer is that Debian 13 too new, and perhaps not compatible with R2025a? But my colleague has Debian 13 and working Matlab R2025a.

https://uk.mathworks.com/support/requirements/matlab-linux.html

During troubleshooting, when trying this:

wget https://www.mathworks.com/MathWorksServiceHost/glnxa64/ReinstallMathWorksServiceHost

chmod +x ReinstallMathWorksServiceHost

./ReinstallMathWorksServiceHost

I get /tmp/mwse_1617356865/bin/glnxa64/InstallMathWorksServiceHost: error while loading shared libraries: libgtk-x11-2.0.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

I have libgtk-4-1 (current for Debian 13) installed, so clearly newer than 2.0

https://www.gtk.org/docs/installations/linux

Thanks

[Conor Burgess]

That should be fixed with the most recent release, but the URL redirect hasn't been changed yet. This should work though (please let me know how you get on?):

wget https://ssd.mathworks.com/supportfiles/downloads/MathWorksServiceHost/v2025.9.0.2/reinstallers/glnxa64/ReinstallMathWorksServiceHost
chmod +x ReinstallMathWorksServiceHost
./ReinstallMathWorksServiceHost

(you may need to remove any existing download of ReinstallMathWorksServiceHost).

[Maria del Carmen]

Hi, I can confirm this worked and I can launch MATLAB R2025a now without issues in Debian 13. Thanks

[Hicham]

yes it's worked fine in fedora 42 now. thanks

[Conor Burgess]

Thanks both for confirming!

[Daniel]

Had the same issue. Your solution worked for me too. Thank you!

Answer 2

[reaujahn]

I can reproduce this behaviour after a distro upgrade from fedora 41 to 42.