Delay/Pause After command in R2012a

I use MATLAB on Linux and recently installed it on a Windows 7 machine (R2012a). On the windows machine I am having an issue where it there is a long pause (10-30seconds) after I issue a command in the command window. Any command: 1+1, ls, etc. This happens whenever I don't use MATLAB for approximately 30seconds or so and come back and then enter a command. If I enter commands in relatively quick succession, there is no pause. I tried a complete reinstall and I get the same behavior. Ideas?

Answer 1

[John Petersen]

If you have low memory due to memory hogging applications or you have very little RAM there could be a delay when you switch applications if Win7 has to swap RAM space with the hard drive. If this is your problem, add more usable memory or reduce the number of apps running when Matlab is up.

Answer 2

[Brad Humphreys]

Just trying to state that I only have this issue R2012a when installed on Windows 7.

This happens irrespective of processor/mem usage (8GB total with 5GB available; 7% processor usage). Swap space is huge, no problem running other demanding apps.

Once executed, even demanding commands do not execute slowly; it just takes several seconds to get them to execute if I have not been working in the command window. Java issue?

[Sean de Wolski]

Yup, probably a Java issue. What version of Java are you running?

ver

Will contain the java info.

[Brad Humphreys]

Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Version 6.1 (Build 7601: Service Pack 1) Java Version: Java 1.6.0_17-b04 with Sun Microsystems Inc. Java HotSpot™ 64-Bit Server VM mixed mode

[Sean de Wolski]

That looks right. What do you have for your Java Heap Space setting? File>Preferences>General>Java Heap Memory.

You may want to try increasing this, applying changes, and restarting MATLAB. It's an easy thing to try blindly.

[Brad Humphreys]

It was set at the default 196MB. I tried increasing to 1100MB (restarting between) and no appreciable difference. Initialization of MATLAB is very slow too.

[Brad Humphreys]

BTW, I also looked at my path settings - they are all local directories.

[Sean de Wolski]

I would reset this then. Does it speed up if you close the workspace/current director/editor?

[Brad Humphreys]

Closed everything but the command window.... same behavior.

[Sean de Wolski]

How many files are in your current directory? If there are many and you navigate to a folder without many, does it still occur? Once you get it working quickly, does:

rehash

take awhile?

[Brad Humphreys]

Current directory only has 7 directories and 6 files. After getting it to work, rehash is normal. I also tried removing all but the default directories in the path. No help.

Answer 3

[Brad Humphreys]

For example, I just executed: tic, toc

There was a long pause of about 10 seconds then I get: Elapsed time is 0.000005 seconds.