MATLAB: Do I encounter an error ” Invalid ELF header” when launching the MATLAB installer on Linux

MATLAB

Why do I encounter an error " Invalid ELF header" when Installing MATLAB on Linux?
The Error looks like this:
Caused by: java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: /tmp/mathworks_28627/bin/glnxa64/libinstutil.so: /tmp/mathworks_28627/bin/glnxa64/libstdc++.so.6: invalid ELF header

Best Answer

This error can occur because one of two situations:
  • The zip files's md5 checksums do not match
  • The installer zip was unzipped on another OS and moved over
The zip files's md5 checksums do not match
For these older releases you need to download the zip files for all products. You would then need to make sure that the md5 sums are correct for each one of the files. To do this you can check the md5 sums on Linux with the distribution's specific command. Example: Ubuntu- "md5sum zipfilename.zip". You can then compare them to the values where you downloaded the files in the license center. There will be a small blue link (Show/Hide MD5) next to the top of the Filename column.
The installer zip was unzipped on another OS and moved over
If you extracted the installer folder on a different OS, then moved it to a Linux machine, the symbolic links will not be created during the installation resulting in an "Invalid ELF header" error. The resolution is to move the installer zip file over to the Linux machine and then unzip the installer on that OS.
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