MATLAB: Starting matlab pool hangs in 2018b

parallel computingParallel Computing Toolbox

Hi,
when I try to start a local pool either by clicking on 'Start parallel pool' or calling 'parpool' or during a call to 'parfor' (automatic start enabled), matlab starts to intitialize it but it does that for hours if I do not abort the process.
There is no error message, however, significant cpu resource consumption.
I went through similar issues posted in the forum and tried
distcomp.feature( 'LocalUseMpiexec', false )
However, this did not solve the issue.
The matlab version is running under windows 10 with administrative rights on a Lenovo notebook T470.
Please help!
Thanks, Norman

Best Answer

Thanks Edric for your comment, which let me move forward to the solution :)
At first, I couldn't see how the startup.m file might interfere as I never had issues with startup.m files in the past years.
However, in this specific case, I used a startup.m file that prompts a user input. This would indeed create a problem if starting a parallel pool also starts the startup.m file again.
This is probably the case because commenting the "input" line solved the issue.
So I learned something new. Thanks a lot for your hint Edric!
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