"The file has been modified outside of MATLAB Editor. Do you want to reload it?" error. How to repair that?

I receive error message: "The file has been modified outside of MATLAB Editor. Do you want to reload it?" almost every time when I click somewhere outside Matlab. I receive that error message about 30 times a day. It is really annoying. In fact all my document are saved on network drive but I am only person who works on that documents. It happens for every documents of Matlab. Could you please help me resolve that issue?

[SteveM]

I had exactly the same problem.

What solved it for me was to move the MATLAB code files (in my case an application in the App designer) onto a local drive. I was using Dropbox as storage before, and assume that something in the background SYNC process was upsetting Matlab. Now it works fine.

Answer 1

[Guillaume]

There is probably an issue with your network drive where the modification timestamp on the file keeps changing, hence why matlab would think the file have changed.

If you can't fix the issue with the network drive (or use a local drive instead), then you can turn the warning off (it's not an error) by going into Preferences -> Editor/Debugger and untick Reload unedited files that have been externally modified.

[Marzena Prokopiuk]

Thank you very much for help! Unfortunately I can`t use a local drive so I will unticked that and hope never see that warning again.

[Walter Roberson]

Amy Van Wey Lovatt comments to Guillaume:

I too have been having these issues with Matlab. Frequently, when I edit and compile a file in Matlab I first get the err message that "file disk may be empty or incomplete" (although I have over 32 Gigs free space on my network drive), followed by the error message "The file has been modified outside of MATLAB Editor. Do you want to reload it?" Unfortunately, this also occurs when I move everything to my hard drive. This is a real pain, and I've been waiting for months for answers from Matlab. The accepted answer by Vishal Neelagiri (staff) on 16 Jan 2017 https://au.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/320346-popup-message-when-running-script-modified-outside-the-editor-reload-file?s_tid=answers_rc1-2_p2_MLT posited that others may be accessing the script. However, no one has access to my m files except me. This is a private license. The accepted answer by Vishal Neelagiri (staff) on 16 Jan 2017 https://au.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/320346-popup-message-when-running-script-modified-outside-the-editor-reload-file?s_tid=answers_rc1-2_p2_MLT posited that others may be accessing the script. However, no one has access to my m files except me. This is a private license. This answer does not make sense either to me unless the Matlab has changed so much that I can no longer run multiple simulations of the same code simultaneously? Or is there an issue with Matlab interacting with Windows 10? In previous version not running on Windows 10, when I compiled or saved a file I did not receive these error messages. My only work around has been to reset the path every time I modify a file. However, this is unacceptable. I'm about to chuck in Matlab (between this and the persistent issues with the built in ode solvers) and use either Julia or Python.

[Tom DeLonge]

@Walter: did you find a solution for your problem? I have exactly the same issue and cannot resolve it. Totally annoying!

[Marek Jarocinski]

I have the same problem but in my case it seems to be related to git.

Neither untick Reload unedited files that have been externally modified nor rehash path solve it. rehash path either does not do anything or takes a split second and produces no output, but also does not solve this problem.

In my case the problem only happens in folders that are part of a git repository. This is surprising because git does not run in the background or modify files without your knowledge, I think (?). I do not even have the git bash open when working in Matlab.

[Josh Licata]

@Marek Jarocinski old thread but I can confirm the the exact same issue with git and it is driving me crazy. I haven't found a solution yet

[Marek Jarocinski]

@Josh Licata What solved the problem for me was to disable Matlab source control. I copy and paste from Matlab help how to do it:

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Disable Source Control

When you disable source control, MATLAB does not destroy repository information. For example, it does not remove the .svn folder. You can put the folder back under source control by enabling the source control integration again.

1. On the Home tab, in the Environment section, click Preferences.
2. In the Preferences dialog box, in the MATLAB > General > Source Control pane, select None.

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Answer 2

[Adam Danz]

This is a band aid, not a solution.

This is the error dialog that appears when a files stored on a mapped network drive are edited and saved - even if just 1 character was changed. It might be a different error from the one described by OP but it sounds similar.

Pressing OK then leads to this dialog box,

Press Yes. Then, from the Matlab Command Window, run

rehash path

and wait for it to complete. Then you should be able to use the m-file again.... until you make another change.

Let's hope the problem is eventually solved.

[Walter Roberson]

If you "clear" the file name then that should in theory have the effect of forcing it to be re-located the next time it is to be run.

[Adam Danz]

I saw that recommendation of yours in another thread and tried it last night but I didn't see an effect.

Just to make sure I've got the logic right, I ran "clear <filename>" after receiving this error. I'll try it again, though.

[DanielFromIllinois]

rehash path worked for me. I'll say that I made one more change to the file and the error appeared one last time and then it was gone.

Also for me, the error occured when running two instances of matlab and it was the second editor / window that was causing it. I had the other matlab running a process.

Answer 3

[Walter Roberson]

One of the ways this can occur is if you are using a network file system, either local or something like OneDrive, and if the system time on the network system is notably different than the system time on your own system, especially if your system time is slow relative to the time at the server.

For example suppose you write a change at 14:09:17 local time on your system, but the time at the server is 14:09:22, so 14:09:22 is the time recorded at the server, while your MATLAB saved internal information that the file was modified at 14:09:17 (local time.) Then MATLAB does a periodic check to see whether the file was updated (somehow), and it sees the timestamp of 14:09:22 recorded at the server, compares that to the 14:09:17 it knew, and says "Oh, it got updated on the server!" . So you bring down the latest version, and the first modification... same thing happens, the time on the server version of the file is notably newer than the time known to MATLAB, and there goes the message again.

Because time differences even on well-run systems are a fact of life (it is surprisingly hard to synchronize clocks -- impossible according to Relativity), the MATLAB end has a built-in "grace time": if the time difference is small enough then MATLAB assumes it is due to network time differences. But if the diffrence is large enough you can get problems.

Sometimes, on some systems, rebooting the system is enough to prod the system to get a better time. But sometimes you need to synchronize your clock using a service designed to keep clocks synchronized. In Windows 10 see https://pureinfotech.com/sync-clock-windows-10/

[Walter Roberson]

Another way this can happen is if you are using Windows 10 and OneDrive and you have immediate synchronization turned on, then at least for some range of Windows patches, the file synchronization can fail to operate properly, resulting in a disagreement between systems about what the contents of the file are. To get around this you had to turn off immediate synchronization. (Possibly this problem has been patched by now, I do not know.)

Answer 4

[Marzena Prokopiuk]

New error message appeared. It says: The file on disk might be empty of incomplete. Ensure there is sufficient free space on your drive, and then save the file again..." - attached. I am sure I have free space on that network drive. what can I do? It is problem with network drive itself?

[Andy Brown]

I only get this error message if I have two versions of Matlab running. I've only noticed it since I upgraded to Windows 10, but can't say for sure whether the problem existed before the upgrade.