Why is MATLAB unable to run the MATLABWindow application on Linux?

Why is MATLAB unable to run the MATLABWindow application on Linux, with the following warning?

>> simulink
Warning: MATLABWindow application failed to launch. Unable to launch the MATLABWindow application

Answer 1

[MathWorks Support Team]

NOTE: In the instructions below we use the phrase "set aside somelibrary.so" a couple of times, this does not mean only moving somelibrary.so itself, it means moving all files which start with somelibrary.so, so for example also somelibrary.so.1, somelibrary.so.1.0, etc. Scroll down to the bottom of this answer to see example Linux shell commands which use the * wildcard with which you can easily move all those files starting with a particular name.

Due to some library compatibility issues, MATLAB may not be able to launch MATLABWindow on your particular distribution/version of Linux. Here are some steps to detect and work around the incompatibility.

In MATLAB:

>> cd(matlabroot)
>> ! bin/glnxa64/MATLABWindow

----------------

1)

If you see:

bin/glnxa64/MATLABWindow: error while loading shared libraries: libgconf-2.so.4: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Then you should:

This is a known Ubuntu issue. As root:

# apt-get install libgconf-2-4

----------------

2)

If you see:

bin/glnxa64/MATLABWindow: symbol lookup error: somelibrary: undefined symbol: g_log_structured

or

bin/glnxa64/MATLABWindow: symbol lookup error: somelibrary: undefined symbol: g_log_structured_standard 

Then you should:

Set aside MATLAB’s copy of the libglib-2.0.so library, located in <matlabroot>/cefclient/sys/os/glnxa64.

See instructions below.

----------------

3)If you see:

bin/glnxa64/MATLABWindow: symbol lookup error: somelibrary: undefined symbol: FT_Get_Var_Blend_Coordinates

or

bin/glnxa64/MATLABWindow: symbol lookup error: somelibrary: undefined symbol: FT_Done_MM_Var

or

bin/glnxa64/MATLABWindow: symbol lookup error: somelibrary: undefined symbol: FT_Get_Transform

Then you should:

Set aside MATLAB’s copy of the libfreetype.so.6 library, located in <matlabroot>/bin/glnxa64.

See instructions below.

----------------

4)

If you see:

bin/glnxa64/MATLABWindow: path to/libstdc++.so.6: version `CXXABI_1.3.9' not found (required by somelibrary)

Then you should:

Set aside MATLAB’s copy of the libstdc++.so.6 library, located in <matlabroot>/sys/os/glnxa64

See instructions below

----------------

5)

If you see:

A mini-browser window appears showing www.mathworks.com

Then you should:

Close the mini-browser. MATLABWindows is working.

----------------

To set aside MATLAB’s copy of the libstdc++.so.6 library (for example), please navigate to MATLAB R2017b installation location in your system and remove the “libstdc++.so.6” library file shipped with MATLAB R2017b, so that MATLAB will use the system version of that library:

<matlabroot>/sys/os/glnxa64

Note

: Here <matlabroot> is the location in your system where MATLAB R2017b is installed.

Eg: ‘/usr/local/MATLAB/R2017B’.

Following are the commands to execute in linux shell to perform the above mentioned operation: (You may need root privilege)

# cd /usr/local/MATLAB/R2017b   (or wherever you may have installed MATLAB)# cd cefclient/sys/os/glnxa64   (or whichever directory is indicated in above table)# mkdir exclude# mv libglib-2.0.so* exclude/   (or whichever library is indicated in above table)

[Charlie Waters]

This perfectly solved my issue on Arch Linux. Thank you! I had to install libselinux from the AUR, and "set aside" libglib and libfreetype in order to run Simulink.

[Eric Smith]

These instructions worked well on Fedora 27. Had to replace the MATLAB libfreetype and glib libraries with the Fedora equivalents, and then Simulink started working. Thanks!

[Carlo Monjaraz]

I can also confirm this works for Fedora 27, followed as Eric Smith writes. Thanks!

[Mateusz Litwin]

Thank you. Problem solved on Ubuntu 17.10.

[Carlos Imbaquingo]

Yes, it worked on Fedora 27. Thanks a lot!

[Dominik Rajsp]

I had the error decribed in 2) (under Kubuntu 17.10). Deleting libglib-2.0.so solved not the problem. I had to delete all libglib-2.0.so-files (after discussing the problem with the matlab-support):

• libglib-2.0.so
• libglib-2.0.so.0
• libglib-2.0.so.0.4200.2

After that everything works fine!

[Martijn]

I am not entirely sure about the exact content of this article in the past but I believe that strictly speaking the answer has always explicitly explained that "setting aside" meant moving more than just one file. Nevertheless based on the feedback from Dominik above as well as from some other MATLAB users, I have added a note at the top of the answer to explicitly highlight this.

[toasty13]

Thanks a lot, solved the issue on Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS.

[Frank van Diggelen]

Thanks, this solved the problem on Debian

[Kendall Barboza]

This worked to me:

Core 2 Duo

Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS

Matlab 2016a

[Ricardo Calderon]

You're a life saver! This worked for me as well

Using Debian 10 (buster) and Matlab 2012a

[Antonio Palma]

Wonderful!

Not so simple, ok; but effective!

Thank you!

:-)

[CARLOS RIASCOS]

THANK you :)

[Theo Pap]

Perfect! Solved the problem. Thank you very much!

Worked for R18a, Ubuntu Distro

[Jasper Vinkenvleugel]

Hello, I have a different issue:

./MATLABWindow: symbol lookup error: /lib64/libk5crypto.so.3: undefined symbol: EVP_KDF_ctrl, version OPENSSL_1_1_1b

How would I go about fixing this?

[Johannes Anastasiadis]

Hi Jasper Vinkenvleugel,

I had the same problem. My solution:

• Go to http://kerberos.org/dist/ and download release 1.17.1 of Kerberos V5.
• Build it and copy only libk5crypto.so.3.1 to <matlabroot>/bin/glnxa64.
• Make a symlink in the same directory: libk5crypto.so.3 -> libk5crypto.so.3.1

Now Matlab can use release 1.17.1 while the system still uses the release of its repository.

[Quentin Sabah]

I confirm this solved the issue with Matlab 20a and Fedora 32! Thanks.

Additionnaly I run matlab this way to work-around several other issues:

env LD_PRELOAD=/lib64/libstdc++.so.6 GTK_PATH=/usr/lib64/gtk-2.0 matlab

Note that the same trick with libk5crypto allow to run the Matlab installer.

[John Bollinger]

I ran into the libk5crypto / EVP_KDF_ctrl issue on CentOS 8.

The problem is that MATLABWindow and maybe other MATLAB applications dynamically link the system's libk5crypto but against MATLAB's own bundled libcrypto (and associated libssl). The bundled libcrypto is not compatible with the system's libk5crypto. I resolved the issue by "setting aside" MATLAB's libcrypto.so. For good measure, I set aside libssl.so, too.

There is no need to replace any system libraries, and it would be unwise to do so.

[Alan Willis]

Linux systems have sophisticated packaging systems, and have for many years. I am really disappointed to find that I paid for commercial software that only provides a simple zipfile with library dependency issues that I have to fix myself.

You can do better.

[Dan Hendrickson]

Alan,

Please contact MathWorks technical support if you are still experiencing an issue.

Best,

Dan

[Xu Deng]

IT WORKED! Thank you so much.

[skrowten_hermit]

This worked well. I'm using R2017b and I had an issue similar to:

bin/glnxa64/MATLABWindow: symbol lookup error: _somelibrary_: undefined symbol: FT_Done_MM_Var

as mentioned in the answer above and I renamed as mentioned. The error didn't appear after that. Thanks!

[Greg]

How does one "set aside" libraries from an installation BD? The disc mounts as read-only (obviously). Please don't tell me I'm supposed to suffer through copying the entire disc content to local storage then run these hack workarounds before I can install R2020b.

Linux is terrible enough as it is, I don't want to band-aid my way through an install onto a "fully supported" operating system - RHEL 8

Per system requirements page: "MATLAB and Simulink have been validated on the Linux distributions listed on this page."

Edit, update: I went ahead and copied the .ISO content to a local directory, and "set aside" libcrypto and libssl per John Bollinger on 22 May 2020. The install window appears incredibly slowly, but when I get to the FIK page (i.e., nearly the very first thing), the "Next" button never enables.

[Walter Roberson]

Greg, as I read through it appears to me that this is an issue that shows up after installation and does not affect installation. There would therefore not be any need to set aside in read-only installation media. (There could potentially be difficulty if your admins provides an installed matlab by mounting a shared read-only device.)

[Greg]

Walter, my apologies - I attributed my specific situation to the comments posts from Jasper Vinkenvleugel and John Bollinger. They had the same library conflict I do, so I mistakenly assumed it was also occuring during install. For me, it is indeed happening within the install script provided for Linux distributions.

The update edit paragraph in my previous comment is the current behavior on my RHEL 8.2 system. Amusingly enough, shortly after that post, I tried running the silent install per installer_input.txt. It appears to have work beautifully (but I haven't tried to run any code to see if there are additional downstream issues).

[Antonio Francino]

I run Pop!_OS 20.10

The error msg when trying MATLABWindow was not listed:

"bin/glnxa64/MATLABWindow: error while loading shared libraries: libgcrypt.so.11: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory "

What library should be set aside ?

These are all the libraries in (matlabroot)/sys/os/glnxa64 :

libgcc_s.so.1.bak libirc.so libgfortran.so.3 libquadmath.so.0.0.0 libgfortran.so.3.0.0 libquadmath.so.0.bak libifcore.so.5 libstdc++.so.6.0.17 libifport.so.5 libstdc++.so.6.bak libimf.so

libsvml.so libintlc.so.5 README.libstdc++

Any fix ?

[Walter Roberson]

https://github.com/adobe/brackets/issues/12380 contains hints ?

[Alessandro Genova]

for

symbol lookup error: /usr/lib/libharfbuzz.so.0: undefined symbol: FT_Get_Transform

follow this: https://it.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/388052-why-is-my-matlab-unable-to-run-simulink-matlabwindow

[Alessandro Genova]

also, (currently in September 2022) version R2022b does not work on Linux (at least FOR ME), so I installed R2022a and works.

Answer 2

[József Mózer]

I had an error that was not documented on support pages at all, but was very similar to this one. It propped up after I solved issue number 2 in this thread when attempting to launch Simulink.

This solution worked for me on R2019b, but since the issue is consistent it should work with all recent MATLAB releases as well as all Linux distributions. As it turns out, there has been a problem with the Add-on Manager of MATLAB for a while now, causing these issues. Here's the solution in case you don't want to read the details. Also it is uncessary to redirect the symlinks as described on the Wiki, it is enough to exclude them from the matlabroot folder so MATLAB will use system-defaults.

Here's the process, run commands as root when prompted:

cd /usr/local/MATLAB/R2019b/cefclient/sys/so/glnxa64        # default location for this
mkdir exclude

Now enter the commands to remove the symlinks causing the errors.

mv libgio-2.0.so* exclude
mv libglib-2.0.so* exclude
mv libgmodule-2.0.so* exclude
mv libgobject-2.0.so* exclude
mv libgthread-2.0.so* exclude

Your problem should be solved. This shouldn't break anything either, since more up-to-date system defaults exist for these libs. You should also make a README file, so you know what you did and why in case you need to come back a year later or something.

I would also like to state, that I am severely disappointed in MATLAB and Mathworks. Providing a .zip file for installation on systems with very well made package management is dumb and annoying. Shipping an expensive piece of commercial software on an operating system claiming it works, while it needs workarounds is straight up outrageous.

[Matthew Mione]

This solved the issue for me--I had done something similar to this fix earlier when trying to get Simulink working after an installation of MATLAB on Ubuntu 20.04. It broke again, and this fixed the issue,

[Oleksandr Denysenko]

I had following error:

bin/glnxa64/MATLABWindow: symbol lookup error: /usr/lib/libpango-1.0.so.0: undefined symbol: g_memdup2

and your solution helped! Thanks!

[Alexander Saloum]

Thanks József! Your solution worked for me too: Matlab2018a on Manjaro Linux, 5.10.41-1-MANJARO

[Getsh Fikadie]

Thanks man. It worked for. You saved my life.

[Yannan Zhang]

Your solution perfectly solved my problems!! Thank you!!!!

[Bernie Steep Escobar Reyes]

Thank you! I can solve the probem with the steps you mention above.

[Simbarashe Aldrin Ngorima]

this worked for me thanks

[zijing Wang]

very thank you for your method ,it's useful !

Answer 3

[Ion Lazar]

This worked for me, thank you.

Answer 4

[Júlio César Chaves]

Install a java virtual machine.

sudo install dnf
sudo dnf install java-1.8.0-openjdk ant -y

[Joseph Coco]

This worked for me. People online said it was likely a library mismatch error, like libsso or libcrypto throwing errors, but apparently it was just lack of jre/jdk.

[FEDERICO]

On ArchLinux installing jdk8-openjdk and ant solved most of my issues. I also restored the libraries I had excluded, it seems to work.

Answer 5

[Jeff Mandel]

The problem is that MATLABWindow uses the Chromium browser. If you are trying to use this on a headless server (in my case Ubuntu Server 18.04), none of the libraries have been installed. The simple solution is to install Chromium:

sudo apt-get install chromium-browser

I can now install things like MATLAB-Drive on my server through my X-server.

[phoe]

apt-get install chromium-browser,Is the command running on the server side?

Answer 6

[Alex]

I am facing a similar problem, but with a different library.

This is my error code when I am trying to start SIMULINK:

   Warning: MATLABWindow application failed to launch. Unable to launch the MATLABWindow application 
  > In sltemplate.ui.StartPage/showWithFallback
    In sltemplate.ui.StartPage.show

and after running:

>> cd(matlabroot)
>> ! bin/glnxa64/MATLABWindow

i get:

bin/glnxa64/MATLABWindow: symbol lookup error: /usr/lib/libharfbuzz.so.0: undefined symbol: FT_Done_MM_Var

Thank you in advance!

[Tim Hilt]

Exactly the same thing as with user above is happening for me. Same Matlab- and Command-Output! Any help or recommendation will be greatly appreciated, since there seems to be no other Post regarding this particular Issue.

[bk]

Hi,

link seems to solve this problem.

Best regards

Answer 7

[Hariprasad]

I tried

>> ! bin/glnxa64/MATLABWindow

and I got error

-bash: bin/glnxa64/MATLABWindow: No such file or directory

What is wrong here? I'm running Matlab R2018a on Centos 6.9 on EC2 instance

[Amardeep Mishra]

I have the same error

[Winston Yu]

don't skip the first command: cd(matlabroot)

Answer 8

[Tech Support]

Hi,

If you are still experiencing this issue, please contact MathWorks support:

https://www.mathworks.com/support/contact_us.html

-Justin

[Rogier Delporte]

I'm still experiencing a similar issue (where I cannot enter any text into textboxes to e.g. log in or use the add-on explorer) and I got none of the errors above. All the output I got while trying to log in after executing the command

!./MATLABWindow -url=http://mathworks.com --disable-gpu

was:

GLib-GIO-[1;32mMessage[0m: [34m10:42:41.753[0m: Using the 'memory' GSettings backend.  Your settings will not be saved or shared with other applications.
[0313/104241.758859:ERROR:nss_util.cc(802)] After loading Root Certs, loaded==false: NSS error code: -8018
[0313/104241.814138:INFO:client_handler.cpp(150)]  OnBeforeResourceLoad http://mathworks.com/
[0313/104242.122176:INFO:client_handler.cpp(150)]  OnBeforeResourceLoad http://www.mathworks.com/
[0313/104242.156209:INFO:client_handler.cpp(150)]  OnBeforeResourceLoad https://www.mathworks.com/
[0313/104242.224884:INFO:client_handler.cpp(162)]  OnResourceResponse https://www.mathworks.com/
[0313/104242.229007:INFO:client_handler.cpp(481)]  OnLoadStart 
A Parser-blocking, cross site (i.e. different eTLD+1) script, https://assets.adobedtm.com/d0cc0600946eb3957f703b9fe43c3590597a8c2c/mbox-contents-95c6a4d9c82a8d20476522984666120b54192e9b.js, is invoked via document.write. The network request for this script MAY be blocked by the browser in this or a future page load due to poor network connectivity. If blocked in this page load, it will be confirmed in a subsequent console message.See https://www.chromestatus.com/feature/5718547946799104 for more details.
A Parser-blocking, cross site (i.e. different eTLD+1) script, https://assets.adobedtm.com/d0cc0600946eb3957f703b9fe43c3590597a8c2c/mbox-contents-95c6a4d9c82a8d20476522984666120b54192e9b.js, is invoked via document.write. The network request for this script MAY be blocked by the browser in this or a future page load due to poor network connectivity. If blocked in this page load, it will be confirmed in a subsequent console message.See https://www.chromestatus.com/feature/5718547946799104 for more details.
[0313/104242.468139:ERROR:render_process_host_impl.cc(2113)] Request for unknown Channel-associated interface: device::mojom::ScreenOrientationListener
A Parser-blocking, cross site (i.e. different eTLD+1) script, https://assets.adobedtm.com/d0cc0600946eb3957f703b9fe43c3590597a8c2c/scripts/satellite-5672ffbd64746d5bd3002853.js, is invoked via document.write. The network request for this script MAY be blocked by the browser in this or a future page load due to poor network connectivity. If blocked in this page load, it will be confirmed in a subsequent console message.See https://www.chromestatus.com/feature/5718547946799104 for more details.
A Parser-blocking, cross site (i.e. different eTLD+1) script, https://assets.adobedtm.com/d0cc0600946eb3957f703b9fe43c3590597a8c2c/scripts/satellite-5672ffbd64746d5bd3002853.js, is invoked via document.write. The network request for this script MAY be blocked by the browser in this or a future page load due to poor network connectivity. If blocked in this page load, it will be confirmed in a subsequent console message.See https://www.chromestatus.com/feature/5718547946799104 for more details.
[0313/104243.369665:INFO:client_handler.cpp(512)] OnLoadEnd:SETTING FOUCS 
[0313/104243.560145:INFO:client_handler.cpp(512)] OnLoadEnd:SETTING FOUCS 
[0313/104244.973149:INFO:client_handler.cpp(512)] OnLoadEnd:SETTING FOUCS 
[0313/104244.973767:INFO:client_handler.cpp(512)] OnLoadEnd:SETTING FOUCS 
[0313/104244.973937:INFO:client_handler.cpp(505)]  OnLoadEnd 
[0313/104244.973954:INFO:client_handler.cpp(512)] OnLoadEnd:SETTING FOUCS 
[0313/104245.640779:INFO:client_handler.cpp(150)]  OnBeforeResourceLoad https://nl.mathworks.com/?requestedDomain=
[0313/104245.678161:INFO:client_handler.cpp(162)]  OnResourceResponse https://nl.mathworks.com/?requestedDomain=
[0313/104245.685755:INFO:client_handler.cpp(481)]  OnLoadStart 
A Parser-blocking, cross site (i.e. different eTLD+1) script, https://assets.adobedtm.com/d0cc0600946eb3957f703b9fe43c3590597a8c2c/mbox-contents-95c6a4d9c82a8d20476522984666120b54192e9b.js, is invoked via document.write. The network request for this script MAY be blocked by the browser in this or a future page load due to poor network connectivity. If blocked in this page load, it will be confirmed in a subsequent console message.See https://www.chromestatus.com/feature/5718547946799104 for more details.
A Parser-blocking, cross site (i.e. different eTLD+1) script, https://assets.adobedtm.com/d0cc0600946eb3957f703b9fe43c3590597a8c2c/mbox-contents-95c6a4d9c82a8d20476522984666120b54192e9b.js, is invoked via document.write. The network request for this script MAY be blocked by the browser in this or a future page load due to poor network connectivity. If blocked in this page load, it will be confirmed in a subsequent console message.See https://www.chromestatus.com/feature/5718547946799104 for more details.
A Parser-blocking, cross site (i.e. different eTLD+1) script, https://assets.adobedtm.com/d0cc0600946eb3957f703b9fe43c3590597a8c2c/scripts/satellite-5672ffbd64746d5bd3002853.js, is invoked via document.write. The network request for this script MAY be blocked by the browser in this or a future page load due to poor network connectivity. If blocked in this page load, it will be confirmed in a subsequent console message.See https://www.chromestatus.com/feature/5718547946799104 for more details.
A Parser-blocking, cross site (i.e. different eTLD+1) script, https://assets.adobedtm.com/d0cc0600946eb3957f703b9fe43c3590597a8c2c/scripts/satellite-5672ffbd64746d5bd3002853.js, is invoked via document.write. The network request for this script MAY be blocked by the browser in this or a future page load due to poor network connectivity. If blocked in this page load, it will be confirmed in a subsequent console message.See https://www.chromestatus.com/feature/5718547946799104 for more details.
[0313/104246.205072:INFO:client_handler.cpp(512)] OnLoadEnd:SETTING FOUCS 
[0313/104246.641569:INFO:client_handler.cpp(505)]  OnLoadEnd 
[0313/104246.641625:INFO:client_handler.cpp(512)] OnLoadEnd:SETTING FOUCS 

It's pretty annoying.

I'm running on Ubuntu 18.10, kernel 4.18.0-16-generic, MATLAB version 9.5.0.944444 (R2018b).

Answer 9

[Jorge Martinez]

Hi there,

I would like to refer you to the MATLAB page on the Arch Linux Wiki.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/MATLAB

Even when you do not use Arch as your Linux distribution this page contains very detailed instructions on how to get MATLAB to work under Linux, from installation to configuration and troubleshooting.

I found there the answer to the problem I had (the same problem aleper mentioned on starting SIMULINK).

[houssam deboucha]

i could fix this problem of matlab due to some library new on linux while matlab use old version so just you can go to the path /usr/local/MATLAB/R2017b/bin/glnxa64 then rename the libfreetype.so.6.11.1 to libfreetype.so.11.1.old that's all

Answer 10

[Renan Silva]

I am having a similar problem, R2018a on Linux Mint 20.01. I cannot open the Live Script Editor. When I run the command:

! bin / glnxa64 / MATLABWindow

The error that appears is this:

symbol lookup error: /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpango-1.0.so.0: undefined symbol: g_log_structured_standard

I tried to move the ".so" to the "exclude" folder, but the errors became different and I had to undo the change.

I haven't been able to solve it yet.