Update doesn't work, is uninstall and reinstall too risky?

Hello. I noticed a bell in the upper right corner of my academic license R2022a MatLab which told that update 3 is available. Update does not work, "I have no rights to write" to the drive/directory. MatLab directs me to this question: https://se.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/460588-why-does-the-matlab-r2018b-update-2-installer-fail-on-linux-and-macos

Using sudo /usr/local/MATLAB/R2022a/bin/glnxa64/update_installer seems to be the solution, but also that doesn't work for me. Terminal is processing and processing, it's taking far too long. I quit trying after more than one hour had passed.

I got curious about re-installing MatLab so that I would have the rights to update, too. But I see the forum full of problems related to uninstall/reinstall process and now I'm asking for people to share their experience, if they have reinstalled MatLab for this reason. And how to actually do it? I'm using Ubuntu-based Linux (Pop!_OS). My intuition tells me to continue using the old version, because it works. Reinstalling seems to be a risky business, I don't want to waste days for doing it.

EDIT: I installed MatLab to my own computer myself. So it is not about IT-personnel restricting the rigths.

[Bruno Luong]

If you think it is too risky why not just stay in update 2, if it works for you?

[Jan]

I had rarely problems with installing, updating or uninstalling with Matlab. If installed Matlab on about 50 or 70 devices in the last 20 years and had only one failure. Then the uninstalling did not work, but a re-installing: installing the same version over the only partioally installation. Afterwards I've uninstalled completely and re-installed, because this might be a little bit more secure (or voodoo...).

But my experiences concers just 2 installations uner Linux, while the rest was Windows.

You can ask MathWorks, if the observed behavior is a known problem of the update installer. The installation support is included.

[Jonne Klockars]

Looks like I'll stay with the original installation. But who knows, maybe someone with experience from similar situation ends up writing something useful here.

[Jan]

@Jonne Klockars: Are you sure, that the update was still running? What does the log file tell you? See: /tmp/mathworks_<username>.log .

[Jonne Klockars]

@Jan The search does not find such a file from my computer

[Bruno Luong]

May be the safest is to download the full installation (with update 3) locally, then install it if you are willing to take the risk.

On widows you don't have to uninstall the existing installation.

[Jonne Klockars]

@Bruno Luong Thanks, I didn't think of that. I'll see if I can make it work simply by installing the most recent version available.

[Jonne Klockars]

@Bruno Luong If you want to make your comment an answer, I'll accept it. By installing MatLab again wihtout uninstall, I managed to get things right. Now I have the most recent version.

Answer 1

[Bruno Luong]

May be the safest is to download the full installation (with update 3) locally, then install it if you are willing to take the risk.

On widows you don't have to uninstall the existing installation

[Jonne Klockars]

This is how the issue was solved. I found out why the installer stalled, see my comment on Tianyi Wang's answer here: https://se.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/460588-why-does-the-matlab-r2018b-update-2-installer-fail-on-linux-and-macos#comment_2286205

Answer 2

[Steven Lord]

Update does not work, "I have no rights to write" to the drive/directory.

Did you install MATLAB originally or did someone in your IT department? It is entirely possible that the IT staff installed it and disallowed normal users from having write permission in that directory (to avoid users accidentally overwriting some of the files in the installation, which if it's shared among multiple users could break their sessions as well.) In that case you'd probably want to ask your IT staff for help installing the upgrade.

[Jonne Klockars]

Good point. I did install it myself to my own computer.