Windows executable works in cmd but not using Matlab system() oder dos() functions

I am tying to run a program (FCEA2.exe) from Matlab. When I enter the command line in Windows using cmd (running as admin), it works perfectly fine using

R:\FCEA2

However, when I try using

   dos('R:\FCEA2')

in Matlab (running Matlab as admin) I get this error:

At line 3455 of file cea2.f (unit = 14, file = 'thermo.lib')
Fortran runtime error: End of file

The same thing happens using system() instead of dos(). I get the same problem when I force Windows to use my own user account via runas in cmd, even though I have admin privileges. I am using Windows 7 and the academic version of Matlab 2015a. Does anyone know a way to solve this problem?

[Walter Roberson]

Can you add enough debugging to determine if the file open succeeds, and if not then what the error code is? Can you determine how much of the file is read?

At the shell command line, please show the result of

   set

and then from within MATLAB please show the result of

system('set')

This is to display the environment variables which will include information about the library path.

Consider using Dependency Walker to determine whether different libraries are invoked in the two cases.

[Chris M]

Hey, I am attempting to run CEA from Matlab also and have the same problem. If you find a solution, please post it for me and others. Thanks!

[Ed Yu]

I think the error is pretty clear, where is your 'thermo.lib'? Is it in the PATH env. variable when launching MATLAB?

[Walter Roberson]

Ed, note that if the problem were with opening the file then normally the failure would be at the open rather than getting end of file unexpectedly. It would depend upon the coding, of course.

Answer 1

[Johannes Gutsmiedl]

Alright, I finally found some time to work on this problem again. I tried the dependency walker and indeed got some missing libraries, but according to a google search that is apparently a problem within the dependency walker tool itself.

I decided to try something I had not tested before: Instead of running the exe itself, I created a shortcut to it (named FCEA.lnk) and executed this shortcut using

start "FCEA" /b /wait FCEA.lnk

as the command to Windows from MATLAB. /b tells it to not open a new command window, /wait to only return once the process is done (otherwise MATLAB will continue without waiting for CEA to finish). While this seems like a pretty ugly hack, it works very well so far. I would be very glad if someone could tell me why though :)

Anyways, thanks for the comments!