plot over writing on gui

I have a GUI that calls a plot function (via a timer) that plots in a separate figure. Occasionally the plot overlays the GUI. I am plotting to the axes, so this should not happen. Example:

plot(hAxes(i), XData, YData);

Here is a repeatable scenario: The timer is repeatedly plotting on a given axes, when I press a UI button, the GUI gets overlaid with the plot just as or before the callback is executed. (I put a dbstop at the beginning of the callback. The GUI would still be overwritten even without the dbstop. It's as if ML gets confused when the GUI figure is made current, even though the plot axes is specified.

Any ideas?

[Geoff Hayes]

Jerry - can you post/attach more of your code? Is the line

 plot(hAxes(i), XData, YData);

the only place in the code where you call plot?

[Adam]

Since you have a breakpoint at the key location have you looked at

hAxes(i)

on the command line at that moment to ascertain whether it is a valid axis handle and the one you expect. If it isn't a valid axis handle then it may just default to creating a new axes on the current figure (I'm not 100% sure because obviously I try to avoid ever being in the situation of plotting to a dead axes handle).

[Jerry Gregoire]

Hi Geoff, Adam

I figured out what is happening. I was executing a 'hold off' command unnecessarily in my timer function, (it was in a previous utility I had written). The hold off command added an axes to my GUI. It looked like a plot but was empty. Apparently hold off does more than just instruct Matlab for the next axis update, it immediately creates a fresh axis in the figure.

Thanks for your ideas.

[Adam]

Yes, I have been caught by that a few times. hold off will create an axes specially to turn their hold status off if it doesn't have an active axes on the current figure!