Unable to load previous .mat file versions in latest MATLAB version

I created a .mat file in MATLAB version : R2014a and I try to open it in a later MATLAB version: R2017b and I am getting the following error:

Unable to read MAT-file <my file path> Not a binary MAT-file. Try load -ASCII
to read as text.

[Walter Roberson]

Are you able to load the file in R2014a?

[divyasami27]

Yes I am, but I would like to load it in R2017b

[Walter Roberson]

Would you be able to attach the file for examination?

[divyasami27]

Yes, I have attached it below. All I did here was write assign a varible a number and saved it to a matfile in the R2014a version and try to read it in the R2017b version.

[Walter Roberson]

For me that file does not load even in R2014a.

The only report I can seem to find at the moment is https://www.mathworks.com/support/bugreports/327768 which is related to saving -v7.3 files when there is a disk space shortage.

[divyasami27]

That's odd that it doesn't open in your R2014a version. I don't know if this makes a difference but the R2014a version is on a linux and the R2017b version is on a Windows.

Thanks for the link but I don't think its a disk space issue, both machines have more than enough space to store an int.

[Walter Roberson]

I recommend starting a Technical Support request on this.

[divyasami27]

Ok thank you, I will do this now.

[jasper verschuur]

Hi, did you solve this? I am getting the same error message

[divyasami27]

Yes I did but I am not sure if we have the same situation. I was writing to the file on Linux and then reading from Windows, in short they have different new line sequences so this error shows up (Windows has extra stuff) as being a corrupted file. This was the cause, but I guess it didn't really solve the issue. You might try specifying the version of the MAT-file instead of just writing variables to it, like this save('a.mat','x','-v7')

[Walter Roberson]

.mat files are binary files that do not use line terminators.

Historically there could be problems sending binary files between systems by modem as the software was sometimes set to convert newline characters automatically (which does not work for binary files)... but those days are long behind us.