Does MATLAB phone home on startup? (Startup time with VPN and without VPN)

My R2026a Home Edition takes a long time with Mullvad VPN enabled and much less when it is not. Is MATLAB phoning home or something? I have an M3 Mac with 36GB RAM running Sequoia.

Timing results below:

With VPN: 2+ minutes

Opening timing log **********_log.15060 ..

Home License -- for personal use only. Not for government,

academic, research, commercial, or other organizational use.

MATLAB Startup Performance Metrics (In Seconds)

total item gap description

=========================================================

3.53 3.53 0.00 MATLAB script

32.76 29.23 -0.00 main

32.78 0.02 0.00 Session Initialize

78.81 0.59 45.44 Toolbox cache load Start

78.81 30.07 15.96 Session Initialize

86.12 7.31 78.81 cachepath

88.33 1.68 86.65 LM Startup

88.95 0.61 0.00 splash

104.71 0.15 15.61 Constant Initialization

109.77 20.82 0.00 Engine Startup

109.77 0.00 0.00 mljInit

109.77 0.00 0.00 Java initialization

110.42 0.00 0.64 psParser

110.42 0.00 0.00 Toolbox cache join

110.61 0.20 0.00 Package Registry initialization

113.57 0.25 2.71 matlabpath

119.71 0.03 6.11 matlabpath

122.24 0.02 2.51 matlabpath

122.27 0.02 0.01 matlabpath

123.34 0.20 0.86 matlabrc

123.54 0.20 0.00 Startup File

=========================================================

Items shown account for 76.3% of total startup time

_____________________________________________________________________

Without VPN: 21 seconds

Home License -- for personal use only. Not for government,

academic, research, commercial, or other organizational use.

MATLAB Startup Performance Metrics (In Seconds)

total item gap description

=========================================================

2.80 2.80 0.00 MATLAB script

11.96 9.16 0.00 main

11.98 0.02 0.00 Session Initialize

13.23 0.01 1.24 Toolbox cache load Start

13.23 0.83 0.42 Session Initialize

13.31 0.08 13.23 cachepath

13.85 0.49 13.36 LM Startup

13.87 0.01 0.01 splash

14.38 0.12 0.39 Constant Initialization

14.44 0.57 0.00 Engine Startup

14.44 0.00 0.00 mljInit

14.44 0.00 0.00 Java initialization

14.45 0.00 0.01 psParser

14.45 0.00 0.00 Toolbox cache join

19.27 4.81 0.00 Package Registry initialization

19.86 0.19 0.40 matlabpath

20.05 0.02 0.16 matlabpath

20.43 0.02 0.36 matlabpath

20.46 0.03 0.01 matlabpath

20.66 0.05 0.15 matlabrc

20.68 0.02 0.00 Startup File

=========================================================

Items shown account for 92.4% of total startup time

[John D'Errico]

It only phones home if you have the ET toolbox. (The true name for this TB is the Area 51 toolbox.) I could send you a copy, but then black helicopters will come after you.

[Ravi Narasimhan]

Must have gotten a complimentary trial copy of the A51 tbx since adding MATLAB to the VPN exclusion list further stabilized startup times (even over the Connector).

I don't see it listed under the 'ver' output but I guess I don't have a need to know. I will have to guess toolbox commands.

TMW is certainly secretive about these things. I inquired about renewing maintenance on my Home License which expired end of July. No email or anything from TMW. Learned that they changed the terms and conditions to require an Annual Subscription model. No notification, just that the policy changed on 1 January.

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

It looks to me as if MATLAB connects to licensing.mathworks.com upon startup.

There are other connections from MATLAB Service Host that are a bit vaguer in purpose.

[Ravi Narasimhan]

Thanks. It looks like having the Matlab Connector app open cuts down the startup time with the VPN engaged. There are doubtless other factors like time between tests, choice of VPN city/exit node etc. but now MATLAB starts in ~20 sec vs. 2 minutes so I'll consider it a success.