R2018b / R2019a runs very slow on macOS 10.14

Edit: For me, the problem presists on R2019a.

Known Unsupported Thrid-party Applications:

Magnet

Moom

PopClip

HyperDock

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Hi everyone,

I am using macOS 10.14 (Mojave) and just upgraded the MATLAB to R2018b yesterday and found a very strange problem. The editor runs EXTREMELY slow on my system and often freezes. When I click on somewhere on the editor or scrolling the view it usually takes 1-2 secs to response.

However, the strange point is, the problem only occurs when the MATLAB window is displayed on my external monitor. When I move the window to the macbook's internal monitor, everything is normal. And, the problem does not show on some specific files. I don't know if there are any features of those file, but if I make copies of those files, the problem may shows on the copies again.

I am not sure if it is a problem of MATLAB or my OS. How is the R2018b running on your systems?

[Evan Hochwalt]

I'm running macOS 10.13 and I'm having the same issue except it's being slow on my laptop screen. Glad to know I'm not alone.

[Harry Chellis]

Same here, it is unusable on macOs Mojave

[Jack Rochester]

Using macOS 10.13 here. The editor is also running extremly slow for me ever since I updated to the lastest version of Matlab. The variables window is probably the worst, I get the "beach ball" any time I click on it and it takes about 1 minute or 2 for interface to respond. The problem is independent of which display (internal/external) I use the editor on. Very frustrating.

Edit: Just read below about the issues with Magnet. Turned off Magnet and the issue was resolved. Bummer because I love Magnet, but I guess its better than nothing.

[Marcel Goldschen-Ohm]

Turning off Magnet also fixed this issue for me. This is a really huge bummer because I constantly use Magnet all the time. :(

[Bo Zhou]

I also found out it's the Magnet app to blame. But you can let Magnet ignore Matlab. That solves the problem too and I don't have to turn off Magnet which I really love too.

[Sam Miller]

+1 to Bo Zhou's solution

[Devon Lantagne]

Wow! Magnet also resulted in problems with 2019a as well and I just told Magnet to ignore MATLAB and I hvan't had any problems. Thanks Bo Zhou!

[Justin Chu]

This is exactly it. Thanks so much!

[Konrad Lagoda]

+1 to Bo Zhou

[Mitchell Kempisty]

OMG this issue has plagued me for a while and I could never understand why others with similar macbooks didnt have the issue. Thank you so much it literally fixed all my problems immediately.

[Andrew Purvis]

You guys are great, this has been driving me crazy.

[Guy Nir]

Problem persisted with Matlab 2019b.

1. Don't have the magnet app.
2. Tried increasing the Java Heap memory and disabled thesource control integration. Didn't work. I have a progress bar, and matlab crashes at the same place every time.
3. I used activity monitor but couldn't see any big change before crash, although computer is making noises through the entire process.
4. This didn't happen when my cell array of 3d matrices was smaller (matrices were smaller).

Any ideas how to overcome this?

Thank you,

Guy

[inhwan kil]

Ignore "Matlab" on Magnet tool. This solved my issue.

[Neirin Gray Desai]

I can't believe the solution is that simple. This has been driving me absolutely crazy, even reinstalled Matlab a number of times...

[Jakub Znamenacek]

"Ignore "Matlab" on Magnet tool. This solved my issue."

This worked for me!!! Thank you!

[Geoff Martin]

Thanks for the Magnet tip! Worked for me on a MBP running 10.15.3.

[August Kampfer]

Thanks a lot, worked out great! 10.15.3

[Alessandro Assirelli]

Thanks it worked also for me!!!

[Edith]

I don't have any of those apps . Any other recommendation??

My Matlab 2018a is really slow in catalina 10.15.3

Cheers

[Walter Roberson]

R2019b is the first release supported on Catalina.

[Donald Kelly]

Disabling Magnet worked for me. Some parts of Matlab were almost unusable with Magnet running.

[Chengyi Song]

Yes！Disabling Magnet solved the problem. That's so wired.

[Cheng Yu]

The same problem happened to me with Matlab 2020a and macOS catalina (no mentioned Apps installed), finally found that it is caused by Rectangle, turning it off solved the problem. Hope this is helpful.

[Nigel Davies]

Disabling Magnet also worked for me, r2021a prerelease and r2020b, MacBook Pro with Apple Silicon M1, macOs Big Sur.

[Walter Newsome]

Yes, I had the same issue. Disabling Magnet fixed it

[yangpeng zhang]

Got it! Just uninstall Matlab and remain magnet, then you can resolve this problem.hhhhhh

Answer 1

[Kris Fedorenko]

There were instances of similar behavior in R2018b caused by the Magnet app. Turning it off should resolve the issue. Alternatively, you should be able to use keyboard shortcuts with no delays.

[Chang Liu]

Yes you are right, after closing HyperDock the problem is resolved. But does that means that MathWorks are not going to fix it, or not able to fix it?

[Jiannan Zhou]

For now, if you still wants to use Magnet. I would suggest just select ignore "Matlab" in Magnet. This way, you could still use Magnet for other apps and have a no delay Matlab editor, before either Matlab or Magnet fixes the issue.

[Kris Fedorenko]

The development team is investigating the issue!

Jinnan, that's good to know as a possible workaround for now.

[Felix Reuen]

That solved the clicking and scrolling issue. But I'm still getting fairly bad results in the benchmark.

Does this have got something to do with the fact that apple switched from openGL to Metal?

[Andras Joo]

I have had Hyperdock installed managing the windows' snappiness. Turning off window snapping or closing Hyperdock altogether doesn't affect Matlab's poor UI performance on Mojave.

[AnaelG]

Closing BetterSnapTool on macOS Mojave, Matlab R2018b solved the problem for me. MathWorks please fix this!

[kevin lee]

Thanks! This solved my question, but I am so superised to know how did you notice magnet caused this?

[Matt Popovich]

Thanks Kris! Just to note for others, you don't have to quit/turn off Magnet, you can just tell Magnet to "Ignore "MATLAB"":

• With Matlab open, click on the Magnet icon in the (top) menu bar, then click on "Ignore "MATLAB"".

This will make Matlab snappy again and will keep Manget working (for all windows except for Matlab).

[Alexandre Campos]

I confirm the interference with the app Magnet!

[Caitlin Dagg]

Telling Magnet to ignore Matlab worked instantly for me, thanks!

[Andrea Galli]

Solved the issue for me too! Awesome

[Tianze Yu]

holy s……

thank you for your solution. It works!

I've tried everything I could.

[Toni Ejarque]

I had the same problem and it works. Thank you.

[Thomas Gederberg]

I keep hearing people refer to Magnet. Is Magnet part of the standard MacOS system or a third party app? I don't think I have Magnet installed but have the sluggish performance.

[dimitri arutinov]

<3 thank you

it works

[Hee Suk Yoon]

thanks! It worked for me

[Kristina Moore]

@Thomas Gederberg: Just a third-party app that allows windows to "snap" to half-screen or full-screen like Windows windows do. Your issue might be elsewhere.

[Richard Stanley]

I've seen the sluggishness in Matlab and Simulink regardless if windowing apps are running, though definitely worse with Magnet. Are there any fixes addressing this in 19a? I didn't see any in the release notes.

[Justin Schachter]

Wow, I've been complaining about MATLAB 2019a running slow for a few days (running macOS 13.5). I came here, quit Magnet, and all of a sudden all of my complaints have been fixed. Thank you!

Anyone know why exactly this might be happening?

[Salvador Castaneda]

Same Here! it was magnet all along!? Thanks for the tip!

[Josh Parks]

also has a problem with Spectacle

[Majid Pourgholi Ghazvini]

how did you knew ???? I've been frustrated for ever

[Markku Leppälä]

Ignoring Matlab in Magnet is also fixing the issue, thus there's no need to quit the application whenever using Matlab.

[Xuhui Gong]

thx you very much!!!

[weicheng Xu]

Amazing!!!!

[Luyu Wang]

Thank you soooo much! Annoyed by it for soooo long!

[Yuchen Sun]

Thank you! You saved my life!

[francisco94]

THANK YOU!, it's so crazy that Tiles (free Magnet) is the problem!. I just exit Tiles and everything works fine

[Nicole Appleton Guerrero]

I can't believe that was the issue. Thank you so much for the solution, MATLAB is running so much smoother now!

[Ibai Martinez]

Gracias por tanto, perdon por tan poco.

[Nigel Davies]

Disabling Magnet also worked for me, r2021a prerelease and r2020b, MacBook Pro with Apple Silicon M1, macOs Big Sur.

[Kaito Kusumoto]

Unbelievable!! Thanks a lot. This helped me.

Answer 2

[Felix Reuen]

I've got the same problem. Matlab R2018b is very slow, but only when I'm editing scripts. It takes like a second for the courser so appear after I clicked at a point in the code. As far as I know, it occurs on the internal monitor, haven't tested a external one yet. The benchmark results are very bad, I'm always between 7th and 9th place, although it's a i7, 16gb ram macbook pro with iOS 10.13.

[Harry Chellis]

Same here, it is unusable on macOs Mojave. Multiple seconds delay in selecting a line of text and/or scrolling.

[Olivia Cracchiolo]

I am having the same issue and I don't even have any window snapping apps installed. I can't even plot my data, suggestions?

Answer 3

[Nicolas B]

Also experiencing this issue.

Matlab slows down to a crawl as soon as I open the help window or plot a figure.

Running macOS Mojave 10.14.4 on a 16gb 2015 Macbook Pro.

Disabling Source Control integration and incrasing Java Heap Memory size twofold does not help.

I do not have any windowing app.

The problem is the same regardless of the monitor (internal/external).

[Patrick Fischer]

Same for me. Matlab 2015 or 2018.

No windowing app installed. I tried the two solutions mentionned above and it doesn't change anything.

Still looking for a solution...

Please help !

[Darcy Cordell]

Same for me. All the solutions online talk about window snapping apps but I do have one installed.

[Walter Roberson]

See though https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/421446-r2018b-r2019a-runs-very-slow-on-macos-10-14#answer_414410

Also, make sure you have Source Code Control turned off.

Answer 4

[Danni Brito]

Open the Matlab interface, go to the Magnet icon and click it, press on "Ignore Matlab", everythink should be normal now.

[Marcel Goldschen-Ohm]

Thanks so much to whomever developed this solution. Kudos!

[Clement]

OMFG, thank you so much!

Answer 5

[Shen Zhao]

I use macOS 10.14.1 and Matalb 2018b.

The same thing happens for me. Mine is even worse. All of the Matlab app crashes for me.

It is really annoying than just being sluggish in Matlab. I originally thought it is due to java. I uninstalled java completely but then these things still happened. Then I completely reinstalled macOS and install software. Here comes the interesting things.

With fresh macOS. Af first, everything finally works. I can use Matlab app like classification app learner etc. But later when I install other softwares, the annoying things happen again!!! So annoying!!!

Then I find this question, some app conflicts with Matlab 2018b.

I do not have magnet but some other service ran in the background. Then I end the process one by one and check whether it works. Then I find, when I kill the "popclip" process, finally everything works perfect now!

Answer 6

[Chris Rorden]

I had issues with the GUI of some popular MATLAB tools freezing: the checkboxes of dicm2nii and the file selection dialogs of SPM. I do not have any of the tools described here (Magnet, Moom, PopClip, HyperDock), so I was perplexed. I discovered my issues could be resolved if I disable the "Zoom" option in the 'Accessibility' of the System Preferences (shown enabled by the blue checkbox below). Whenever this is enabled (even when it is not active), I have issues with MALTAB 2019A. When it is disabled, all works fine. Unfortunate, as I do use these accesibility features...

[HongZhang Yang]

IIt work!!!

[Siddharth Sadanand]

Why in the devil did this work?!

[Akai Red]

Brilliant! Somehow it works like a magic now! You saved one man turning into an evil.

Answer 7

[Viktor Mattsson]

I have the exact same problem on my internal monitor, haven't tried with an external monitor. But the editor is very slow in Matlab R2018b, the cursor takes a couple of seconds to show up when I click somewhere in the code. Also when I want to run scripts I have to hover above the 1-2 seconds before I can click otherwise nothing happens when I click it.

Had the same problems both in macOS 10.13 and 10.14.

[Pontus Vikstål]

I just tried with an external monitor. And I experience less delay, but still some delay which to me is unacceptable.

Answer 8

[Matthew Radice]

Ok I disabled Matlab in the magnet drop down menu. Then I did a restart and everything is working as normal.

The magnet app remembers what apps you forget.

I hope that helps some of you as it really made Matlab unusable.

Answer 9

[Thomas Gederberg]

I am having the same problems with Matlab 2018b (also Matlab 2017a) running VERY slowly on Mojave. Unusable. However, I do not have Magnet installed (never heard of it), so that does not seem to be my problem.

Answer 10

[Pontus Vikstål]

I have exactly the same problem on my MacBook. When I click on a line in a script it takes about a second cursor to appear, it's super annoying.

Answer 11

[Daniel Kovari]

BetterTouchTool (https://folivora.ai/) also appears to cause MATLAB 2018b to have issues. In particular, using Java UI elements such as those included with the Widgets Toolbox causes MATLAB to hang (spinning beachball).

Answer 12

[Sangjae]

I have already raised this issue by volunteering with a beta tester for 2019a, but have received an answer that it has already been resolved.

BUT I understand that this is a situation in which the issue is being resolved. I would like to be sure that it is a problem with the Magnet app or Matlab's problem and should be fixed. I appreciate that I can use the MATLAB program, but apart from that, I do not understand that the company is staying as a temporary countermeasure for months without any measures.

[Anders Vestergaard]

I have 2019a and it only works when i disable magnet...

Using MacBook Pro (15-inch 2016) macOS Mojave 16 GB ram

Answer 13

[Victor Murray]

I had the same problem with Matlab 2018b and Mojave 10.14.4.

Since I didn't had any of the Apps mentioned here to kill, I installed Matlab 2019a.... and had the same problem.

I was able to fixed by doing 2 things:

• Deactivating the option "Enable MathWorks Source Control Integration" (check https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/262442-java-heap-space-out-of-memory-problem).
• Increasing the Java Heap Size (Preferences -> General -> Java Heap Memory).

So far it is working.

Cheers!

[yuriy stepanov]

worked for me (2020b, MacBook Pro 13, M1 Chip, BigSur)

[Tugay Alperen Karaguzel]

Worked for me - 2021a, MacBook Pro 16, 2019, Big Sur 11.5.2

[Victor Murray]

Great!

Answer 14

[tetonedge]

I am having the same problem on a MacPro 10.13

Answer 15

[Andras Joo]

I can confirm the same issue on MacOS Mojave/Matlab 2018b.

Does this has to do with OpenGL being deprecated on Mojave?

Answer 16

[Matthew Radice]

I am also experiencing these issues on Mojave.

Answer 17

[Pieter Delobelle]

Same problem on macOS Mojave, I also have the Magnet app installed. Hope this gets fixed very soon, matlab 2018b is basically unusable.

[Matthew Radice]

Did you disable Matlab in the magnet drop down menu?

Answer 18

[Giammarco Valenti]

I experienced the same problem with matlab 2018b and Mojave. Quitting Magnet the problem was solved. The problem was only about the graphic interface of Matlab, because if I use and external editor and I run the scripts by the command window it works as always.

Answer 19

[Anna Smith]

Yes, also running 2018b on Mac OS 10.13.4 with the same issue. After quitting magnet everything in the editor runs smoothly now!

Answer 20

[Samuel Moczygemba]

My editor was extremely sluggish. For example, clicking "Run Selection" would take a few seconds for just the button animation to finish.

Magnet is a window manager for Mac. I do not use Magnet but do use another window manager named Moom.

Disabling Moom seems to have fixed the problem for me on a MacBook Pro running macOS Mojave 10.14.

Answer 21

[Mohammad Azarnoush]

I have the same problem. For about two months, everything was perfect. However, things started to get worse. When I open a script file, the cursor freezes; it is very vexxing. I don't have the magnet app or any other similar window manager. This is a really serious issue. Glad that I can work with python with no such errors.

Answer 22

[Silvia Butti]

Hi,

I am having the same issue here. I updated from 2016b to 2019a and the delay makes Matlab unusable (about 30 seconds delay to open an empty figure, and several minutes to save and load files). The problem persists on both external and internal monitor. I do not have Magnet or any similar window managing apps installed, and I cannot disable source control as I am working with Git. I am running MacOS10.12 (so this is not an issue specific to Mojave). I still have Matlab2016b installed which works fine.

Any help or ideas on what to do would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

Answer 23

[Marc]

Exactly the same issue with new 2019a version on a late 2009 iMac 8GB RAM running onOS High Sierra 10.13.6, system slows to a crawl then crashes when plotting figures and using datasets of approx 1GB or more. Tried increasing the applied MATLAB memory capacity in preferences but to no avail. I am beginning to think it was a pointless purchase!!!

Answer 24

[Richard]

I am running Mac OS 10.13 (High Sierra) with R2019a & have the same problem (iMac with 8GB RAM).

I re-launched MATLAB & this time, I denied it access to the internet. And now it's ok.

Update, 3rd May: the problem has come back!! Fyi I do not use Magnet. Also fyi I never had this problem with R2017a which I have been using up to a few weeks ago.

[Marc]

Could you explain the steps you took to 'deny Matlab access to the internet' please Richard.

[Silvia Butti]

Would also be interested to know. Thanks!

[Emily C]

I am also interested in this as the other suggestions didn't fix the porblem for me. I tried running it with the internet turned off on my laptop which worked (but not ideal). So hunted around a little more and went into service preferences menu item for the Matlab program and unticked the internet box as shown in picture below. I'm on Mac OS 10.13.6

This seems to make the program run normal speed now.

[Richard]

When I launch MATLAB it always asks me via a popup bix whether I will accept incoming internet connections. I usually accept, but this time I denied. And that fixed the problem. I never use the internet with MATLAB so for me that's not an issue. Hope that clarifies.

Answer 25

[Huxi Wang]

I have figured out this problem!

macOS 10.14, matlab 2019a.

No matter it is Magnet app or popclip app, they are all related to srceen capture (text, image, etc.). These capture functions will interfere with matlab 2018b or matlab 2019a. So, what you have to do is just disable these functions, and everything will work fine.

Answer 26

[Yixiao Wang]

Same issue for a long time...

Answer 27

[Ran Xiao]

Appreciate the inputs!

This has been driven me crazy and diabling Magnet works like a charm for me.

Just a add, you can choose to disable Magnet just for Matlab and keep using it for other apps.