MATLAB: Does MATLAB hang on startup when run in the background on HP machines

backgroundbatchhanghpMATLABmodescreensplash

Why does MATLAB hang on startup when run in the background on HP machines?
I can run MATLAB in batch mode on my HP machine, but if I try to run it in the background, it hangs on the splash screen:
 matlab -r "disp('test')" &
I have even tried starting MATLAB without the splash screen and without the Java Virtual Machine, but the startup still hangs.
The same problems occur on HP-UX 10.2 and HP-UX 11.0, using MATLAB 6.0, 6.1, and 6.5 (R12, R12.1, and R13).

Best Answer

This hang occurs during the initializaion of the curses library provided by HP. It appears as if this is a bug in the HP operating system; therefore, our development staff has no plans to resolve this problem.
As a workaround, you can try using the following command to run in batch mode in the background.
 matlab /automation -r input.m > outputfile &
Note that this will only work if you redirect the ouput to a file that does not already exist. Therefore, it may be useful to put this code in a script that deletes the output file before redirecting output to it.
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