MATLAB: Do I receive a “nonexistent directory” error when I try to CD to a directory using the MATLAB Distributed Computing Engine 1.0.1 (R14SP2)

changecomputeddctdirectorydistributedMATLAB Parallel ServermdceParallel Computing Toolboxpath

In my taskStartup.m file for the MDCE, I am trying to CD to a directory. I can CD to this directory without an error from the MATLAB command window. However, when I CD to this directory from my taskStartup.m file, I get the following error:

 Error using ==> cd
 Cannot CD to s:\tempdir\ (Name is nonexistent or not a directory).

Best Answer

A Distributed Computing worker runs as a service. On Windows, a service does not know about network drive mappings.

As a workaround, use UNC paths, e.g., \\mathworks\tempdir instead of S:\ on a Windows machine. The worker can still CD to a local drive like C:\ or D:\.

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When the worker is on a different machine than the client, and the file system is not shared between the client and worker, this is not possible, and MATLAB gives the warning messages.

To work around this issue set 'CurrentDirectory' parameter in BATCH to '.', as follows:

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Then you can store results across days and use setdiff to find which new folder were added.

Oleg

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