October, 2009

I started MATLAB tonight, and got an error:

Exception in thread "AWT-EventQueue-0"...

[I don't have this error now, and only have the first line that I copied.]

Why do I get this error? I have used this version of MATLAB
for over a year. The only thing that I can think of that has changed
is that I installed updates recently. Could one of the updates have
done this?

Here is the Software Update.log
2009-10-05 22:53:02 -0400: Installed "Java for Mac OS X 10.5 Update 5" (1.0)
2009-10-05 22:53:32 -0400: Installed "QuickTime" (7.6.4)
2009-10-05 22:53:56 -0400: Installed "Security Update 2009-005" (1.0)
2009-10-05 22:54:40 -0400: Installed "iTunes" (9.0.1)

I suspect the first one could be responsible.

When faced with an error like this, I turn to an Internet search. 
Surely, someone else has had this problem, and probably figured out
how to fix it.

I found a post where someone suggests changing the font to a monospaced one.
[http://www.mathworks.co.kr/matlabcentral/newsreader/search_results?search_string=leopard&view=text]
It's not clear to me if this is a response to this problem or something else.
Running MATLAB, I select (from the MATLAB menu at the top left, next 
to the Apple symbol) File -> Preferences -> Fonts.
The "Desktop code font" box has "Currently used by: Command Window, Command
History, Editor" with a drop-down menus below it "Monospaced" "Plain" and "12".
Could it be that this is a default font, after the original one was 
tried and failed? But that MATLAB never overwrites the original one,
so I get this same error every time I start it? I clicked on the "Apply"
button at the bottom, closed the window (by clicking the upper left red
window button), and typed "exit" at the MATLAB command window. When
I restarted MATLAB, I did not get this error message.

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So is this the solution, or was it just a lucky coincidence? 
I suspect the default font was undefined. But now I cannot seem to 
generate that problem.

--
Michael Weeks, copyright 2009