Silent Install MatLab R2018a Won't Start, Asks for Activation

Doing an unattended install of MatLab R2018a and it all installs fine. However, once you attempt to start MatLab it asks you to activate. I've got my license.dat file and the product key in the install_properties file and it appears in the installer so the setting is being read but it's not activating somehow. If you go and put in the same details into the activation wizard post-install it works fine so I'm not sure why it's not working during the silent install. I have an identical setup for Matlab versions going back to 2015 and haven't had this issue, from what I can see the installation method hasn't changed with 2018 according to the install guide. Any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

[Keith Watling]

Is this definately an activation issue? I had a message popping up asking to accept the matlab privacy policy.

This was down to the following option in installer properties file. Once I had set the option for enbleLNU to no, this stopped the privacy message and need to sign in to use Matlab.

## Enable Login Named User  licensing
##
## Set to Yes to enable use of a Login Named User license for all users of this MATLAB installation
## Users must log in to their MathWorks Account when MATLAB starts.
##
## Example: enableLNU=yes
##
## NOTE: This flag is valid in silent installations only.

enableLNU=no

[Daniel McAllister]

I'm not sure, I think you're along the right lines as it seemed it wasn't getting the exact right input. I've not had the issue follow me to 2019 versions or 2020, thankfully.

Answer 2

[bidyut mandi]

do you copy the license.dat file and paste it in C:\Program Files\MATLAB\R2018

[Daniel McAllister]

Thanks for the response, no it resides on a network drive in the same directory as the setup files and I specify it's location in the installer_properties file (licensePath="N:\MATLAB R2018a\Windows\license.dat").

[Craig Parker]

Sorry I can't offer any solutions, but I'm having the same problem with our 2018b deployment. Same setup as you, and same setup that we've always used since 2012a. Frustrating!