MATLAB: Do I receive the error ‘cannot start engine’ when I run MuPAD in MATLAB R2013b or R2014a

Question

After opening a MuPAD notebook and entering the following command:

 

    1+1

 

I receive the error message:

 

    'Cannot start engine'

 

Is that a bug?

Answer 1

This issue could be caused due to wrong libraries for the MuPAD executable being found

To fix the issue, copy mupkern.exe to the platform specific binary directory by following these steps:

 

1. Navigate to the folder where the MuPAD executable "mupkern.exe" is located. On a standard Windows 64-bits installation of MATLAB R2014a, this folder is located in

 

C:\Program Files\MATLAB\R2014a\toolbox\symbolic\mupad\win64\bin

More generally, you can find this folder by typing the following command in the Command Window:

>> [matlabroot '\toolbox\symbolic\mupad\' computer('arch') '\bin']

 

 

 *2.* From this folder, for the standard Windows 64-bits installation of MATLAB R2014a, copy mupkern.exe to the directory

 

C:\Program Files\MATLAB\R2014a\bin\win64

More generally copy mupkern.exe to the platform specific binary directory that can be found by typing the following command in the Command Window:

>> [matlabroot '\bin\' computer('arch')]

 

 

3. From the MATLAB Command Window, start MuPAD with the command "mupad"

 

 

4. If the notebook comes up, choose View->Configure from the menu.

5. In the Configure dialogue choose 'Engine'. Here, change the Engine entry to the new location of the mupkern.exe set in step 2.

For instance, for the standard Windows 64-bits installation of MATLAB R2014a the entry should be:

 

C:/Program Files/MATLAB/R2014a/bin/win64/mupkern.exe

6. Leave the Configure dialogue with the 'OK' button