Viewing variables in debug window disables Aero interface

Hi,

When I run code in debug mode, reach a break point, and hover my cursor over a variable name to view its contents, my screen blinks and when it comes back my windows 7 aero interface is disabled. This typically happens when the variable contains a long vector of values rather than a scalar. I have to reboot the computer to restore aero.

I have tried installing the latest version of the Java Runtime environment (Version 7 Update 5), and setting the MATLAB_JAVA environment variable to the corresponding path, however the issue has not been resolved.

Below are my system specs:

 OS: Windows 7 64 bit
 MATLAB: 2012a
 JRE: 7 Update 5
 Video Card: ATI Radeon HD 6970
 Screen Resolution: 2560x1440
 RAM: 8GB

Suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks, Nick

[Jan]

Sorry for this almost trivial suggestion: You can disable Aero manually such that this problem disappears magically. Be aware that semi-transparent user-interfaces are much harder to read, because they show information, which is not relevant currently. So from the point of usability, the disabling of Aero is a feature, not a bug.

Let me mention, that the humor level of this answer is below 10%. It is not an accident that Win8 does not use Aero anymore, it is an improvement!

[Pawel Kusmierek]

Actually using Aero improves performance of some programs, as it provides better screen buffering and reduces the rquired number of redraws.

[L]

I also came across this recently. I checked the Windows 7 Event Viewer and under applications it shows:

The Desktop Window Manager has encountered a fatal error (0x88980406)
The Desktop Window Manager has exited with code (0x88980406)

My system:

OS: Windows 7 x64 (Aero enabled)
MATLAB: 2014a
JRE: default for 2014a -- Java 1.7.0_11-b21
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce GT 635, v335.23 driver
Screen Resolution: 2560x1080
RAM: 64 GB

A repro case for my system is as follows:

function [] = aeroDisableRepro()

var_ok  = rand(370,1);
var_bad = rand(371,1);

return

If I place a breakpoint and hover over var_ok, nothing happens. If I hover over var_bad, Aero crashes as explained above. This is reproducible from a clean boot, and subsequently.

I was unable to reproduce the behavior on a different Win 7 x64 PC with the same MATLAB version, 4GB RAM, and Intel HD graphics v10.18.10.3412. I also attempted to reproduce with MATLAB 2013b and 2012b on another Win 7 x64 PC with ATI 4550 card and it did not happen either.

I updated to the latest NVIDIA drivers 337.88, and that didn't fix it either. I thought I had found a fix, and posted it as an answer, but it just improved the problem, and didn't eliminate it altogether.

[Tim leonard]

This is a very nice write up. Exactly the same problem I am having. Quattro 600, Driver 361.75.

Answer 1

[L]

I spoke to MathWorks support today, since I saw this issue re-appear on a new server that has Windows 7 x64 bit and Matlab 2014a. They suggested the following fix:

1) Run MATLAB as administrator

2) Execute the command "edit datatipinfo" in the MATLAB command prompt

3) On line 48 of the code (might be different in another MATLAB version) which should be "val = val(1:500);", please reduce the value from 500 to another number. You may have to play around with reducing the value to find something that will work in your case.

Hopefully that solves the issue for those of you affected. I'll see if I get a chance to try it soon -- it was not my machine.

[Ghulam Rasool]

Works for me! Thanks!

[Zhengyi]

Thanks L! Works for me after a little bit more workaround.

Apart from

val = val(1:500)

I also changed Line 37, which should originally be

 tooBig = max(s) > 500 || numel(val) > 500;

These lines basically controls the size of the list of the "datatip". For me (display resolution 1920*1200), 50 is fairly adequate for me, so I changed all 500 to 50, and it works.

[Heiko]

Thanks for sharing!

I had the same problem with MatLab R2014b 64 bit (Windows 7 64bit). Sad to see that Mathworks doesn't see the necessity to change this. At least this solution worked.

Heiko

Answer 2

[Pawel Kusmierek]

I noticed the same thing in 2014a, Win 64-bit, ATI Radeon HD 7700.

By the way, there is a way to re-enable Aero without restarting Windows.

Run Command prompt as administrator type in the following commands: net stop uxsms net start uxsms

[Zhengyi]

Useful info, thanks!

Answer 3

[Aditya]

Not an answer but I also have this same problem.

I am using HP8570w with Win7 64 bit, 16gb RAM, nvidia quadro k1000m, 1920x1080.

It seems to happen when I hover over variables that are very large like single column variables that are large but can still be displayed when hovering.

I like the Aero interface and absolutely do not want it disabled.

Any ideas?

Thanks, Aditya

Answer 4

[L]

I'm posting the answer that worked to improve the problem with the repro case I mentioned above.

The fix that led to this was that I added another user to the system, and the new user was not experiencing the problem, so I figured it might be MATLAB preferences related.

I deleted the contents of:

%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\MathWorks
%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\MathWorks

Note that doing the above will reset the MATLAB desktop layout to the default, delete the current user's command history, and any other user-level MATLAB settings.

After doing that, restarting MATLAB and hovering over both var_ok and var_bad variables the DWM crash disappeared.

Edit: It seems the problem is still present regardless of resetting the MATLAB settings, even using a new Windows 7 User Account, except now I get the problem with:

var_ok  = rand(453,1);
var_bad  = rand(454,1);

I also tried pointing MATLAB to a newer Java Runtime v7 update 55 on my system, and as the OP (Nick) mentioned, this does not resolve the problem.

Edit 2: In the end, my resolution ended up being installing Windows 8 x64. That being said, I noticed that there is at least one DWM / DirectX registry setting that affects the behavior of the minimum variable size where the problem happens, but I was not able to eliminate it, given I didn't have time to keep debugging the issue. This particular one was the one I tried:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Avalon.Graphics]
"Force10Level9"=dword:00000001