The documentation has been updated in Release 2008a (R2008a). For previous product releases, read below:
You may encounter this error if the 'bbapi.dll' file is not found on the system path or if 'bbcomm.exe' is not running.
1. You can verify if the Bloomberg API is working by going to the 'Windows Start' menu and choosing "Bloomberg -> API Demo".
2. You will need to verify that 'bbapi.dll' is on your Windows system path ( system environment variable - PATH) to work with MATLAB. To check this, visit the following support article from Microsoft.
<http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310519>
Another possibility is that the user is not using the right syntax. The two input form is no longer supported by Bloomberg. So to connect, you can try:
>> c = bloomberg
Alternatively:
The Bloomberg software is updated regularly and only the most recent version of the Datafeed Toolbox may contain the correct library interface to connect with the Bloomberg API.
The only workaround is to update the version of MATLAB which is being used.
Also, this error may occur because too many connections to the Bloomberg data server have already been established. This may be the result of calling the command
c = bloomberg;
in a FOR-loop. In this case, you should either close the bloomberg connection:
close(c);
before the next iteration or, ideally, open the connection outside of the FOR-loop and use only that one connection within the loop.
