Why my Matlab 2017a is so slow for even simple commands?

Hi there,

I got a new computer and installed Matlab 2017a. The computer looks pretty good with other softwares as it has 16GB of RAM and an AMD 10 processor with Windows 10 (not a fan of it). What may be causing such laziness in my Matlab? I checked the task manager and I see that the processor is not heavily demanded (Matlab and Chrome takes, each, around 3% only and all the other applications use less).

[Steven Lord]

It is impossible to offer any suggestions, even general ones, with the very limited information you provided. What commands are you running? How large is your data? Are you running code that deals with file I/O (in which case the speed of your disk would be useful to know), graphics (information about your graphics hardware and drivers), mathematics, etc.? Is the code well-written or is it littered with eval statements all over the place?

[Walter Roberson]

See also https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/353700-matlab-r2017a-initialization-matlabpath-matlabrc-taking-5min

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/338650-matlab-2017a-takes-10-minutes-to-initialise

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/343250-matlab-2017a-was-running-properly-but-suddenly-became-very-slow

I think I saw another posting as well in which all commands were running slowly, but I do not find that post at the moment.

[Neeta Sabhani]

I am having the same issue with R2017a as well as R2017b.

I can’t even open small variables, just stops working.

[Darío Pérez]

First of all I would like to thank people who try to help with their solutions.

I have a similar problem here. The issue started some months ago with R2017b and it continues in R2018a. The fact is that Matlab boot and bench run fine during the first circa 60 seconds after rebooting / coming-from-sleep my PC but then it suddenly lose performance for the rest of the session (similar problem here: Why does MatLab 2017 slow down?).

PC: Windows 8.1 64-bits; i7-4720HQ 2.6GHz; RAM 16Gb.

First c. 60 seconds after booting PC (4th computer in the list):

bench = 0.10 0.13 0.01 0.11 0.63 1.20

Rest of session (last in the list by far):

bench = 0.24 0.26 0.03 0.20 2.49 5.68

I have tried the following command but didn't work:

opengl('save','software')

I also tried the registry solution suggested here: MATLAB 2017a was running properly, but suddenly became very slow. I found a registry regarding R2015b. When I removed it, the Matlab speed improved notably (to levels of "First 60 secs") but it was unstable. After rebooting the PC, the registry was not there anymore but the behavior went back to slow processing as usual.

I have been trying to monitor processes during start-up but I have not noticed anything strange. CPU and RAM performance also stay at low levels. Compatibility mode is not activated (I have checked that activating it makes it even slower). In addition, I am not able to install R2016b since it does not let me connect to verify license.

Any ideas on how to troubleshoot this? Any comment or suggestion is more than welcomed.

[Jan]

What does "it does not let me connect to verify license" mean? Did you check the temperature of your CPU? What does "I found a registry regarding R2015b" mean? Which "Compatibility mode"?

Did you run a virus check to look for trojans which calculate bitcoins?

"CPU and RAM performance also stay at low levels" means, that this is not a Matlab problem, doesn't it? This means, that your question is off-topic in this forum. Please clarify this.

[Hugh Dowling]

Jan, your inference is incorrect. I'm experiencing the same issue with Matlab running excruciatingly slowly - running "ver -support" this morning took over 45mins! The laptop is otherwise completely usable and no other application exhibits this issue so the problem definitely lies with Matlab.

To me it seems like some kind of semaphore or I/O timeout bug seeing as the processor remains relatively idle, with no disk throttling, swap usage or significant network activity. This is a freshly installed clean PC with up-to-date patches, antivirus, etc. (Dell Latitude E7440).

I've tried the suggested solutions to no avail. And the output from running bench just now, in case it's any use, is:

ans = 0.2221 0.2763 0.0339 0.1571 1.1096 1.7477

Note that my experience of this is intermittent - a couple of commands might run quickly but then the next few will "hang" for ages, with Matlab reporting "Busy" status in the bottom left of the window. This has put a complete stop to the project I was working on (Matlab is essentially unusable) so I really hope this issue will be taken seriously and resolved asap!

[Jan]

@Hugh: Your problem seems to differ from Diego's, because he observes a speed change after 60 seconds of work. Unfortunately he did not answer the questions for clarifications, so it is not clear to me, what "CPU and RAM performance also stay at low levels" means: Is the performance low, or the load?

[Steven Lord]

Hugh, I recommend contacting Technical Support directly (either by submitting a request online or calling them on the phone -- the submission form and the phone number are each given on the Contact Us page linked in the upper-right corner of this page) and working with them to determine the cause of the behavior you're experiencing.

[Darío Pérez]

Thank you very much for your rapidity Jan and for the contributions of the other colleagues!! : )

First of all I would like to apologize for not answering earlier but even having this thread as 'followed' and the 'email notifications' checked I didnt received any mail (not even in Spam). Not sure if the reason is that I 'commented' and not 'asked' nor 'answered'.

I am not an expert in computer science but i will try to answer your questions Jan:

JAN- "it does not let me connect to verify license".

It seems I got lucky and after 2 days trying to install it it has finally connected (nothing changed in my side: same PC, same connection...). I have installed R2016b and the behavior is the same, my PC is in 3rd position when booting the PC:

bench = 0.19  0.16  0.06  012  0.51  0.66

and in 7th place after my PC has been started for some seconds:

bench = 0.37  0.50  0.23  0.40  1.11  1.31

The only difference is that, as you mentioned, bench in R2016b seems quicker in general terms than in later versions (compare vs my bench results in the previous comment with R2018b).

JAN- Did you check the temperature of your CPU?

I hadnt because I hadnt notice anything. I have checked the temperature and stays at common levels (comparing to other times when I checked it a couple of years ago) of c. 50-60 Cdeg (even in warm Madrid at 40 Cdeg : P).

JAN- What does "I found a registry regarding R2015b" mean?

Sorry for the inaccuracy, I didn't want to give further details as I (probably mistakenly) though it had no relevance. It was a "REG_SZ" registry in the folder "Layers" that the colleague in the other thread mentioned. I can no give more info since I removed it.

JAN- Which "Compatibility mode"?

The one that is activated via Right click->Properties->Compatibility-Run this program in compatibility mode for "Windows 8".

JAN- Did you run a virus check to look for trojans which calculate bitcoins?

I think that is not the problem since CPU is at c. 1% in idle.

JAN- What does "CPU and RAM performance also stay at low levels" mean?

I meant that CPU stays at c. 1% and RAM at about 4GB (25%) in idle. I mean, it seems there is no a "strange" process running behind that can slow down Matlab externally.

JAN- this is not a Matlab problem, doesn't it?

That's what I'd love to know haha The fact is that it doesn't seem to happen with other programs (e.g. Excel VBA macros), as @Hugh has experienced also.

Hope this can help us find the solution. Thank you very much again for your interest and help @Jan, @Hugh and @Steven! (in this and several other questions that have helped us in this forum before!)

PS: Please @Hugh, let us know if you find a solution with the support team.

[Darío Pérez]

I had my performance problems resolved using R2018b.

Regards!

Answer 1

[Orestis Koskoletos]

Try this command...

opengl('save','software')

and restart Matlab.

[Tehmina Kakar]

Thank you so much!!!! It worked for me.

[Nur Wijaya]

Thank you so much!!

[Kamran Equbal]

Thankyou...didn't even need to restart...matlab started working like a charm.

[Jake Chung]

Thanks for the great tip. I think it works~!

[Darío Pérez]

Thanks but it is not working for me, see my comment please.

[Sheng Zhu]

works like magic! thanks

[William Retnaraj]

Damn! What does this actually do?

Answer 2

[CHAO LI]

Same to me. It is terrible when to run stuff. Everything is slow even the MATLAB website feels slow.

Answer 3

[Reinhard Schemmel]

Same to me, came from 2016b to 2017b and my code runs 3x slower thand before. Any tricks I should know?

[CHAO LI]

double check if your pc is running in boosting. Or artificially enable turbo boost when running MATLAB.

Answer 4

[Mohammad Rashik Zaman]

Wow, great man . Thank you.