Why does one z axis side remains invisible even when all axes are on and box is on?

I have a surface plot where all axes are on and box is set to on, but one side of the z-axis remains invisible. The single z-axis side remains invisible even when I export the figure to eps or pdf. I've already come across this post: http://au.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/38530-surf-z-axis-not-visible but the proposed solutions did not fix my problem. I have even tried placing "hold on" in the for-loop, after the call to surf, but this still did not fix the issue. Any suggestions for recovering the missing edge of the z-axis are greatly appreciated!

My code:

col_map = [1 0 0;0 1 0;0 0 1;1 1 0;1 0 1;0 1 1];
cdex = randi(6,100,1);

[x1,y1,z1] = sphere(40);
scale = 0.02;
x1 = scale * x1; y1 = scale * y1; z1 = scale * z1;

figure('Position',[0 0 700 700]);
set(gca,'Color',[0.75 0.75 0.75]);
set(gca,'XTick',[]); set(gca,'YTick',[]); set(gca,'ZTick',[]);
set(gca,'ZColor','k');

x = rand(100,1); y = rand(100,1); z = rand(100,1);

hold on
for j = 1:length(x)

     surf(x(j) + x1,y(j) + y1,z(j) + z1,'FaceColor',...
     col_map(cdex(j),:),'EdgeColor','none') 

end

light('Position',[1 1 0],'Style','infinite'); hold on
axis([-0.05 1.05 -0.05 1.05 -0.05 1.05]);
set(gca,'Xdir','reverse');

view(3)
view(70,30)
box on

[Walter Roberson]

Which MATLAB version are you using on which operating system, and what do you get for get(gcf,'Renderer') ?

[Chris Mezias]

I'm running 2014a, on OS 10.8.5, and get OpenGL for get(gcf,'Renderer')

[Walter Roberson]

I see the same thing with your graph in the same MATLAB version on OS-X 10.10.5. Sometimes it is the back left edge and sometimes it is the front left edge, depending on which view I choose.

R2014b introduced a number of new controls over the box edge, so it might be fixed in newer versions.

[Chris Mezias]

Do you know if any of those controls are portable to 2014a? Thanks for your help with this!

[Chris Mezias]

Got it working. It turns out the 'zbuffer' option for 'Renderer' still exists in 2014a (I thought it died in 2013). This displays all of the box edges and renders the spheres in 3D ('painters' does not).

[Walter Roberson]

The new controls are not portable to R2014a.