Dependencies in Matlab App Designer to specific PC

I am currently a student using MATLAB app designer (in version r2019a) for my final year project. I have been directed to this forum from my IT technicians who are not experts in MATLAB and cannot resolve this issue.

Mostly, I have opened and run my app through my personal laptop (Macbook Air) but as my app has become larger and larger, my laptop can no longer sustain running and more often than not crashes within 5 minutes - not ideal for 10 hour days working.

When attempting to run on university computers, the app designer editor will generally load up okay, but when I select 'Run', the icon greys out (as if it were loading) and nothing ever appears on the screen, even if left for hours to run solely that task.

I have tried this on many computers with the same outcome. My university also offers remote access to different computers, which I have tried with the same result (while using the remote access from another university computer).

However, the only time I can get the application to appear (other than with my laptop where it is too slow to support), is when I remote access a windows university computer through my laptop, this works on any remote accessed computer including the ones where it would not run when being accessed directly.

This works as a tempory solution but given I will be working on this code for another 5 months, with the file getting larger and larger it is far from ideal. Using remote access from my laptop is painfully slow to navigate and therefore edit code.

IT support thinks that there may be a cross dependency between my code and my personal laptop, without understanding how or why.

I'm not sure whether that is jargon on his part or whether this will mean anything to people on here who have vastly more experience than me.

Has anyone ever encountered this type of issue before? It seems strange to me that it would work when being remote accessed from one computer but not when being remote accessed from another.

Would anyone have any idea where I could even start to think about resolving this? As I mentioned, I am only a student (of engineering rather than anything computing based) and therefore I would not describe myself as competent with things like this.

I would attach my code, but it is approximately 16,000 lines long, I'm not sure that would be concise for this forum (and I may get problems with academic misconduct for sharing work).

Thanks in advance,

George

[Mario Malic]

16000 lines sounds like a lot. I would guess that it might be something with OS difference. I assume your uni computers use Windows or Linux. Are your MATLAB versions the same? Does the app takes long to open on uni computers?

[George Barrass]

I say 16000 but much of that is MATLAB itself creating the numerous components. The uni computers are windows, I would also think it is an OS thing except for the fact it works on the windows computer when being remote accessed from my laptop (Mac). The MATLAB version is the same yes and yes it takes some time to open (~1 minute) but that is manageable.

[Mario Malic]

Are you sure you're not having a bug where the App Designer would create multiple components of themselves? If you check the Component Browser, do you see app.Button_1, app.Button_2, ..., on the same location?

1 minute seems long, maybe it'd be useful if you check profiler to find out why does it take so long.

[George Barrass]

I can have a check to make sure, although this will be pretty lengthy as there are a lot of components. How would I go about checking the profiler?

[Mario Malic]

You have mentioned that your laptop is slow, do you lack RAM?

The thing with greyed out start button happened to me few times, I am not sure why though. When that happens, try to click on command window and press Ctrl + C (it might be a different button for macOS), maybe you'll see some warning. Maybe contacting customer service would be helpful, maybe they have some insights on the OS difference.

For the profiler

profile on
NameOfYourApp
profile viewer

[George Barrass]

Unfortunately my laptop is a 7 year old macbook air so I would assume that it lacks RAM (without checking).

I have tried pressing Ctrl+C and unfortunately no errors, it just goes onto a new line without displaying anyting (this is while the run button is greyed out).

I have run the profiler, the thing that takes time is not consistent between each run, but mostly it is down to the creating of elements (of which there are roughly 1700), overall I am not too dissatisfied with this as I realise the file is very large.

One thing I have noticed, is that it allows me to run my application through the command window (on any computer); however I have also noticed that app designer does not allow me to save my work on the PCs that grey out the run button - ie I press save and nothing happens independent on whether I have tried running or not. Do you think this makes any difference to the situation?

I have also requested support from mathworks tech support regarding the issue.

[Mario Malic]

MATLAB itself is quite RAM hungry, so with App Designer and that many components, that might be an issue.

I am not sure about the cause of grey button, but this could be the reason. Once you start your app in App Designer, it'll first load all the components, and set them to their positions and so on, and then on the second pass it might adjust the details of each component, like UITable columns width etc.

I can't add much to this question anymore, hope you'll get it resolved without upgrading your laptop.

[George Barrass]

Thank you for your help.

I am pretty sure this is not the issue, as it is maily on the university computers where I am having issues, rather than on my laptop itself.

I'll have to see what tech support says.