MATLAB: Do I receive “??? Error using ==> eval” when I start MATLAB

all_prefspanelsevalinitprefslaunchMATLABpathdefstartstartup

I receive the following error when I start MATLAB:
 ??? Error using ==> eval
 Index exceeds matrix dimensions.
 Error in ==> C:\matlabr13\toolbox\local\initprefs.m
 On line 27  ==>             warning(['Could not evaluate '''all_prefspanels{i} ...
 Error in ==> C:\matlabr13\toolbox\local\matlabrc.m
 On line 162  ==>   initprefs
Additionally, it seems that my path is not set up correctly because I cannot use any MATLAB functions.

Best Answer

One reason why this problem may occur is that you may have a "pathdef.m" file from a previous installation in the startup directory of MATLAB, that is, the current working directory when MATLAB launches.
The solution to this problem is to remove or rename the "pathdef.m" file in that startup directory.
Try typing the following within MATLAB:
which -all pathdef
The only "pathdef.m" file that should be on your path is $MATLABROOT/toolbox/local/pathdef.m, where $MATLABROOT denotes your root MATLAB directory. If you have more than one, rename the other files to something other than "pathdef.m".
For MATLAB users outside of the USA, an additional reason this may be occurring is the decimal separator issue. For more information on this topic, see the Related Solution.
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