matlabpool hangs when working on a virtual machine

I try to run parallel process on a matlab on a virtual machine (windows 8 using oracle virtualBox). It hangs in subfunction pGetSockets:

while WAITING_FOR_SOCKET

    accepted           = obj.ConnectionManager.activelyAccept();
    WAITING_FOR_SOCKET = isempty( accepted );
...
end

since accepted is always returned empty.

i've tried all of the solutions i found but it still happens.

thanks.

Answer 1

[Jason Ross]

• If you validate your cluster profile, is there any more information provided? (Parallel > Manage Cluster Profiles > select the profile, then validate)
• What scheduler are you using? (Local, MDCE, LSF, etc).
• Can you validate a local cluster?
• What release are you working with?
• Do you have the firewall enabled?
• Does your VM have networking set up?
• Is that network functional and correct? (e.g. hostname resolves forward and backward, DNS settings are correct, etc)
• How much RAM do you have configured, how many processors, and how many MATLABs are you trying to open in the pool?

What other solutions did you try?

[edo]

Thanks Jason.

1. the validation process is never finished (hangs) because of the same reason.
2. scheduler : I'm not sure how to check that.
3. The cluster is local. I'm working on the virtual machine using remote access (so the matlab is local). Something in the machine's configuration prevents it from using the cores.
4. release: 2012b
5. firewall: yes. but the matlab stuff is supposed to pass through it.
6. network should be fine
7. 8-16 Gb. 8 cores. i tried to open 1-8 cores.

[Jason Ross]

Things I'd try

1. Disable the firewall temporarily, it's by far the easiest thing to try.
2. Run AdminCenter in matlabroot\toolbox\distcomp\bin . Don't do the MDCE setup options, but run the "Connectivity tests" to check your hostname.

FWIW

1. your scheduler is "local".
2. the minimum system requirement is 2 GB/MATLAB. With 8 workers in your matlabpool, make sure to have the VM configured with 16 GB.

If the above doesn't work, I'd suggest calling technical support.