How to Fix "MATLAB Not Responding or Freezing"

If MATLAB becomes unresponsive or freezes during operation, it may be due to heavy computations, memory issues, conflicts with toolboxes or external functions, or corrupt preference files.

Start by identifying if the freeze occurs during a specific operation or when loading a particular file or script.

If the freeze happens during a long-running calculation, it could be due to insufficient memory or the system being overloaded.

Try optimizing the script by reducing the dataset size or breaking the task into smaller chunks to avoid overloading your system’s resources.

Use MATLAB’s profile tool to analyze your code’s performance.

Run profile on before executing your code, and profile viewer after execution to see where the most time and memory are spent.

This can help pinpoint the cause of the performance issue.

If MATLAB freezes during graphical operations, such as rendering plots, check if your graphics drivers are up to date.

MATLAB relies on graphics hardware acceleration, and outdated or incompatible drivers can cause freezing.

Update your graphics drivers to the latest version.

If freezing happens when running custom functions or scripts, ensure that there are no infinite loops or blocking operations in the code.

Review your code for pause, waitfor, or similar commands that may halt execution unexpectedly.

You can also try running the script in debug mode by placing breakpoints in the code and stepping through it to see if any part is causing the freeze.

Another possible cause is a conflict with external toolboxes or MATLAB add-ons.

Disable any non-essential toolboxes and restart MATLAB to check if the issue is related to an add-on.

To do this, remove the toolbox from the path or disable the add-on temporarily.

If MATLAB continues to freeze even after troubleshooting the script and toolboxes, it could be due to corrupt MATLAB preferences.

Reset the preferences by navigating to the preferences folder (usually located in C:\Users\YourUsername\AppData\Roaming\MathWorks\MATLAB) and renaming the folder.

MATLAB will create new preferences upon the next startup.

Finally, try updating MATLAB itself to ensure there are no known bugs causing freezing.

If none of these steps work, reinstall MATLAB to ensure that there is no corruption in the installation files.

By following these steps, you should be able to fix the freezing or unresponsiveness of MATLAB.