poor MATLAB 2011b performance on OSX 10.6

I tend to use debug mode a lot, step into code, test temporary stuff in the command window while at a break-point etc. On any windows box this is relatively painless, but on my recent macbook pro this hurts.

After a while the spinning ball consumes more and more of my time. Eventually, I cant get any response from MATLAB, and/or it times out with a Java out of memory error. Right now I have temporary edits in my .m file that I cannot save because the MATLAB GUI does not respond.

This way of working may be "wrong" for many reasons, but the ability to do so is one of the reasons why I choose to use MATLAB in the first place.

At the same time, any other application on my mac seems happy (like the safari browser that I type this on).

Answer 1

[Ken Atwell]

Knut, your usage of MATLAB sounds pretty normal and akin to how I work much of the time. I am also on a Mac (desktop mostly, I use MATLAB on my MacBook less frequently) and I fair generally better than you do.

You may experiment with growing the size of the Java heap to see if that helps. I also recommend keeping the Activity Monitor running to ensure your application is not using more memory than you are expecting it to.

If none of this helps, MathWorks support will undoubtedly have other troubleshooting ideas.