matlab does not start on Fedora 28

I used Matlab 2018a with Fedora 27 Atomic Workstation and it worked fine. After the update to Fedora 28 Atomic Workstation, only the splash screen appears, when Matlab starts. Even a fresh installation of Matlab does not solve the problem. I tried to run Matlab 2018a on a normal Fedora 28 installation in a virtual machine. Matlab is not starting on Fedora 28, either.

Starting Matlab with logging enabled:

./matlab -desktop -logfile test3.log

leads to the following error in the log:

Exception in thread "AWT-EventQueue-0" java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: com.mathworks.storage.matlabdrivedesktop.NativeMatlabDriveAccess.getMATLABDriveLocationNative(Ljava/lang/String;)Ljava/lang/String;
  at com.mathworks.storage.matlabdrivedesktop.NativeMatlabDriveAccess.getMATLABDriveLocationNative(Native Method)
  at com.mathworks.storage.matlabdrivedesktop.NativeMatlabDriveAccess.getMATLABDrivePath(NativeMatlabDriveAccess.java:46)
  at com.mathworks.storage.matlabdrivedesktop.MatlabDriveAddressBarPlugin.isEnabled(MatlabDriveAddressBarPlugin.java:112)
  at com.mathworks.addressbar_api.AddressBarPluginManager.mapFriendlyPathToRealPath(AddressBarPluginManager.java:77)
  at com.mathworks.mlwidgets.explorer.util.MacEncodingBugWorkaround.i18nFix_mapFriendlyPathToRealPath(MacEncodingBugWorkaround.java:57)
  at com.mathworks.mlwidgets.explorer.model.navigation.NavigationHistory$HistoryItem.<init>(NavigationHistory.java:226)
  at com.mathworks.mlwidgets.explorer.model.navigation.NavigationHistory$HistoryItem.<init>(NavigationHistory.java:220)
  at com.mathworks.mlwidgets.explorer.model.navigation.NavigationHistory.convertToHistoryItemArray(NavigationHistory.java:216)
  at com.mathworks.mlwidgets.explorer.model.navigation.NavigationHistory.refreshFromPreferences(NavigationHistory.java:137)
  at com.mathworks.mlwidgets.explorer.model.navigation.NavigationHistory.<init>(NavigationHistory.java:65)
  at com.mathworks.mlwidgets.explorer.model.navigation.NavigationHistory.<init>(NavigationHistory.java:52)
  at com.mathworks.mde.explorer.Explorer.buildAddressBar(Explorer.java:623)
  at com.mathworks.mde.explorer.Explorer.<init>(Explorer.java:178)
  at com.mathworks.mde.explorer.Explorer.createInstance(Explorer.java:285)
  at com.mathworks.mde.explorer.Explorer.getInstance(Explorer.java:272)
  at com.mathworks.mde.desk.MLDesktop.setCurrentFolderBarBelowToolstrip(MLDesktop.java:1548)
  at com.mathworks.mde.desk.MLDesktop.restoreLayout(MLDesktop.java:1619)
  at com.mathworks.widgets.desk.Desktop.restoreLayout(Desktop.java:5609)
  at com.mathworks.widgets.desk.Desktop.restorePreviousLayout(Desktop.java:4474)
  at com.mathworks.mde.desk.MLDesktop.restorePreviousLayout(MLDesktop.java:1575)
  at com.mathworks.widgets.desk.Desktop.initMainFrame(Desktop.java:294)
  at com.mathworks.mde.desk.MLDesktop.initMainFrameFromThread(MLDesktop.java:876)
  at com.mathworks.mde.desk.MLDesktop.access$2100(MLDesktop.java:212)
  at com.mathworks.mde.desk.MLDesktop$Initializer.run(MLDesktop.java:1217)
  at java.awt.event.InvocationEvent.dispatch(InvocationEvent.java:311)
  at java.awt.EventQueue.dispatchEventImpl(EventQueue.java:756)
  at java.awt.EventQueue.access$500(EventQueue.java:97)
  at java.awt.EventQueue$3.run(EventQueue.java:709)
  at java.awt.EventQueue$3.run(EventQueue.java:703)
  at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
  at java.security.ProtectionDomain$JavaSecurityAccessImpl.doIntersectionPrivilege(ProtectionDomain.java:80)
  at java.awt.EventQueue.dispatchEvent(EventQueue.java:726)
  at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpOneEventForFilters(EventDispatchThread.java:201)
  at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEventsForFilter(EventDispatchThread.java:116)
  at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEventsForHierarchy(EventDispatchThread.java:105)
  at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEvents(EventDispatchThread.java:101)
  at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEvents(EventDispatchThread.java:93)
  at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.run(EventDispatchThread.java:82)

Starting matlab with

./matlab -nodesktop

works fine.

[Giovanni Grieco]

I can reproduce the same error on Fedora 28 Workstation (not atomic). R2017b works fine.

[Zachary Johnson]

Same problem: Fedora Workstation 28 and Matlab R2018a (R2017b worked fine).

[Albert Mink]

Same problem on fedora28 with R2018a

[matse]

Same problem, fedora 28, R2018a.

R2017b works fine.

[Francesco Brozzu]

Same issue with Fedora 28 + R2018a, asked MATLAB support team and they simply said that this configuration is not supported yet.

[Yu LIU]

Same problem on me, Welcome frame hang on. Problem appears under both Fedora 27 and 28. By the way, R2017a, R2017b work fine under both Fedora.

Answer 1

[speedgo]

Summary:

1) dnf install libnsl

2) Use system libfreetype. Move bin/glnxa64/libfreetype* to another folder. See https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/364727-why-does-matlab-crash-on-linux-fedora-26-with-a-segmentation-violation-r2017b-or-later

Details:

I first get these errors with 'matlab -logfile log.txt':

Exception in thread "AWT-EventQueue-0" java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: com.mathworks.storage.matlabdrivedesktop.NativeMatlabDriveAccess.getMATLABDriveLocationNative(Ljava/lang/String;)Ljava
/lang/String;
  at com.mathworks.storage.matlabdrivedesktop.NativeMatlabDriveAccess.getMATLABDriveLocationNative(Native Method)
  at com.mathworks.storage.matlabdrivedesktop.NativeMatlabDriveAccess.getMATLABDrivePath(NativeMatlabDriveAccess.java:46)
        ...

This corresponds to the missing library libnsl required by libnativemldrivedesktop.so

At Matlab installed folder:

$ ldd bin/glnxa64/libnativemldrivedesktop.so
...
libnsl.so.1 => not found

After installing libnsl, I then get Matlab output dump: Segmentation violation detected. Work around on the libfreetype gets the matlab2018a running.

You might be missing different libraries that I've installed. Check out the libraries required by the .so files in Matlab.

Hope this helps. This issue was resolved quickly due to sending error report to Matlab, and they responded on the libfreetype workaround.

[matse]

Works great, thanks!

[Andrew Naguib]

libnsl is not found [Fedora 27]

Answer 2

[Maximilian Galanis]

I have the same problem on Fedora Workstation 28 and Matlab R2018a

[William ZHOU]

Same on R2018b, solved by following the accepted answer.

Answer 3

[SPHSC HelpDesk]

We have the same problem here. Also with Fedora 28 and R2018a.

Answer 4

[Conor Burgess]

Please follow the instructions from this answer to solve a library loading issue between MATLAB and Fedora. Note that your MATLAB R2018a install path, e.g. ‘/usr/local/MATLAB/R2018a’, should be used instead of R2017b.

Then, for Fedora 28, you'll also need to install the ‘libnsl’ library. MATLAB looks for a version which is no longer shipped with Fedora 28, so needs to be installed manually. You can do this with the following command from a terminal prompt:

sudo yum install libnsl

[Luke Phillips]

Conor, thanks so much for this solution, I was having the same issue with fedora 29 and matlab R2018b and libnsl installation fixed the problem.