Why is MATLAB R2014a hanging on the splash screen on Linux?

I recently installed MATLAB R2014a on my Linux machine, but I cannot get MATLAB to start normally. When I try to start MATLAB it hangs on the splash screen indefinitely until I kill the process. However, I can start MATLAB if I use the "-nodesktop" option. What could be causing this issue?

Answer 1

[MathWorks Support Team]

This issue could occur if the permissions on your preferences directory are incorrect. Please check the permissions on your MATLAB preferences directory and make sure that your user can both read and write to any files in that directory. The default preferences directory for MATLAB R2014a is "~/.matlab/R2014a". If you cannot find your preferences directory, but you are able to start MATLAB using the "-nodesktop", you can find your preferences directory by executing the "prefdir" command from within MATLAB.