CoreText Font Error on MacOS Big Sur

Since upgrading to R2020b on Big Sur, whenever I start MATLAB from the command line (matlab -nodesktop -nosplash), I get the following error messages:

                            < M A T L A B (R) >
                  Copyright 1984-2020 The MathWorks, Inc.
              R2020b Update 1 (9.9.0.1495850) 64-bit (maci64)
                             September 30, 2020

 
To get started, type doc.
For product information, visit www.mathworks.com.
 
>> 2021-02-01 06:44:12.194 MATLAB_maci64[42710:446809] CoreText note: Client requested name ".SFNS-Regular", it will get Times-Roman rather than the intended font. All system UI font access should be through proper APIs such as CTFontCreateUIFontForLanguage() or +[NSFont systemFontOfSize:].
2021-02-01 06:44:12.194 MATLAB_maci64[42710:446809] CoreText note: Set a breakpoint on CTFontLogSystemFontNameRequest to debug.
2021-02-01 06:44:12.200 MATLAB_maci64[42710:446809] CoreText note: Client requested name ".SFNS-Bold", it will get Times-Roman rather than the intended font. All system UI font access should be through proper APIs such as CTFontCreateUIFontForLanguage() or +[NSFont systemFontOfSize:].
2021-02-01 06:44:12.425 MATLAB_maci64[42710:446809] CoreText note: Client requested name ".SFNS-Regular", it will get Times-Roman rather than the intended font. All system UI font access should be through proper APIs such as CTFontCreateUIFontForLanguage() or +[NSFont systemFontOfSize:].
2021-02-01 06:44:12.426 MATLAB_maci64[42710:446809] CoreText note: Client requested name ".SFNS-Bold", it will get Times-Roman rather than the intended font. All system UI font access should be through proper APIs such as CTFontCreateUIFontForLanguage() or +[NSFont systemFontOfSize:].

I get the same error messages in the terminal when I use just type matlab as well. When I start MATLAB normally by clicking the application icon, these error messages do not appear in the command window. I did not experience these problems whe using R2020a on Catalina or R2020a on Big Sur.

[Raymond Walsh]

I'm experiencing the same issue. I normally use matlab through the terminal only and find this issue quite annoying. Please update if anyone finds a solution to this. Supressing these messages would be sufficient.

Thanks!

[Peter]

Following...

[Dave Ortiz-Suslow]

Thanks for posting this, I am having the same issue (also trying to run matlab through Terminal) using Big Sur (11.2.2) and 2020b. Just switched over from a High Sierra+Matlab 2017 set-up with no problems. I'll try to suppress these messages, but a solution would be nice.

Thank you.

[Bridge Jay]

Same issue on MacOS 10.15.7 when tying to run matlab through terminal

[Evelyn Maniaki]

I couldn't open MATLAB by clicking the icon in the dock and started using the terminal in order to do so; same errors. I have MATLAB 2021a and Big Sur 11.3.1.

[Shengchao Lin]

Can report the same issue R2021a on BigSur 11.4, not on start up but when I try to plot something.

[Belinda Marchand]

Confirming, same issue here.

[Ben Lackey]

Same issue. Running latest (R2021a Update 4 (9.10.0.1710957) 64-bit (maci64)) on a MacBook Air (M1, 2020).

[Stefan Glasauer]

Same here, MATLAB Version: 9.10.0.1710957 (R2021a) Update 4, Operating System: macOS Version: 11.5.2 Build: 20G95, running on a MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2017), 3,1 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7.

[vaness lu]

Same with MATLAB R2021a, on Big Sur 11.5.2 (20G95), Intel iMac

[Joe]

I am finding I can't get it to move past this error message right now. I am wondering if there is a seetup I missed for Matlab 2021?

[Paras Patel]

Hi - I just ran into this issue today as well and I searched google for a fix. Did not find any but I'm able to suppress it via (see below) which solves my immediate annoyance.

/Applications/MATLAB_R2021a.app/bin/matlab -nosplash -nodesktop 2> >(grep -v CoreText)

(i.e. I added the 2> >(grep -v CoreText) to redirect the stderr to grep and filtered out CoreText).

I would appreciate a more robust solution from MW though.

[Peter G]

I get the same on a macbook pro running 2021b under Catalina

MATLAB CoreText note: Client requested name ".SFNS-Bold", it will get Times-Roman rather than the intended font. All system UI font access should be through proper APIs such as CTFontCreateUIFontForLanguage() or +[NSFont systemFontOfSize:].

Answer 1

[Joshua O'Reilly]

I found adding the

-nodisplay

flag to your command fixed it for me (or maybe just surpressed it). So:

matlab -nodesktop -nosplash -nodisplay

I'm running MATLAB R2021a on a Macbook Air M1 with macOS 11.6.

Edit: based on this article, you may be able to get away with just -nodisplay:

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/16407-can-i-use-matlab-from-the-terminal-command-line-in-os-x

[Jack Shannon]

Thanks for the suggestion! I tried this and it did indeed suppress the error message, but this works only if I need no display features at all; if I wanted to create figures from the command line, I would not be able to. I did try starting matlab with the -nodisplay option and then ran the plot command, which produced the same error messages but no plot! There seems to be a problem with the way that MATLAB requests fonts from the OS whenever it creates display windows, and using -nodisplay just stops those requests but does not fix the underlying error.

[Joshua O'Reilly]

Oh, well that's no good. Sorry for the bad recommendation, I got this "working" today and hadn't tried creating figures yet.

Answer 2

[M. A. Hopcroft]

I had the same issue until just now and it looks like I got lucky with a solution. I had a java-related Matlab crash, and the Crash Reporter suggested this solution, which is to replace the Java JRE that is installed with Matlab with a different version:

MATLAB crashes on Mac when certain screen events occur (1382373)

I followed this procedure (replaced the MW JRE with the Adoptium JRE 8) for both R2020b and R2021b, and in both cases the font warning no longer appears. I have only tried this on macOS Monterey 12.3.1.

PS - Note that Java version 8 is not the default download at the Adoptium site, you have to select it specifically.