MATLAB 2015a hangs on anything involving graphic generation

I have narrowed down my problem to what must be a graphics problem:

I can use the MATLAB engine to evaluate simple expressions, create matrices, and even open a figure window, but when I try to plot a function, MATLAB displays 'Busy' in the lower left corner, and it is not possible for me to break the process via Ctrl+C, though MATLAB itself is still mostly responsive (I can't close MATLAB, but all the buttons in the menus still work, I can change layout etc..) I tried to insert a basic shape in the figure window, and it also hung. Anything to do with plotting or drawing hangs in a process indefinitely.

I am running Ubuntu 12.04LTS, perhaps there are some dependency issues with packages?

[Walter Roberson]

It is not uncommon for people to encounter graphics driver problems in Linux, and upgrading drivers often helps.

If you have Unity turned on, you might need to turn it off.

Try

opengl software

and see if that makes a difference.

[Elijah Rockers]

I had the inverse problem, the ATI/AMD proprietary driver was causing issues. I reverted back to the open source drivers and this fixed MATLAB, but I lost my dual monitors.

In the end I reinstalled the proprietary drivers to get my dual monitors back, and I start MATLAB with

$ matlab -softwareopengl

as you suggested, and all my image processing capabilities seem to be working now.

Thanks!

[Walter Roberson]

I suggest you post that as an Answer for the record.

Answer 1

[Elijah Rockers]

I had the inverse problem, the ATI/AMD proprietary driver was causing issues. I reverted back to the open source drivers and this fixed MATLAB, but I lost my dual monitors.

In the end I reinstalled the proprietary drivers to get my dual monitors back, and I start MATLAB with

$ matlab -softwareopengl as you suggested, and all my image processing capabilities seem to be working now.

Thanks!

[ajeetraj]

Works for me on Ubuntu 16.10 with Matlab 2016a