CODEWITHSUNDEEP
matlabmemorytimeevaluation
Raksha
Raksha

Reputation: 1699

How to prevent MatLab from freezing?

Is there a way to limit the amount of time an evaluation is allowed to run? Or limit the amount of memory that MatLab is allowed to take up so it doesn't freeze my laptop?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 5880

Answers (1)

rayryeng
rayryeng

Reputation: 104493

Let's answer your questions one at a time:

Question #1 - Can I limit the amount of time MATLAB takes to execute a script?

As far as I know, this is not possible. If you want to do this, you would need a multi-threaded environment where one thread does the actual job while another thread keeps an eye on the timer... but even with that functionality, AFAIK, MATLAB does not have this supported. The only way to stop your script from running is if you punch Ctrl + C / Cmd + C. Depending on what is actually being executed... for example a MEX script or a LAPACK routine, or just a simple MATLAB script, it may work by just pushing it once... or you may have to mash the sequence like a maniac.

(Note: The above image was introduced to try and be funny. If you don't know where that image is from, it's from the movie Flashdance and one of the songs from the soundtrack is She's a maniac, where I've also provided a YouTube link to the song above.)

See this post for more details: How can I interrupt MATLAB when it gets really really busy?

Question #2 - Can we limit the amount of memory that MATLAB uses?

Yes you can. From what I have seen in your posts, you're using Windows. You can change this by changing the page size of the virtual memory that is used for your computer. Specifically, instead of allowing it to grow dynamically, you could set it to be a certain size and once MATLAB exhausts that, it'll give you an out-of-memory error rather than freezing your computer.

See this post from MathWorks forums for more insight:

http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/12695-put-a-limit-on-memory-matlab-uses

Also see this guide from MathWorks on how to handle out-of-memory errors:

http://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/matlab_prog/resolving-out-of-memory-errors.html

Finally, take a look at this link on how to change / modify the page size of your computer via Windows:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-ca/windows/change-virtual-memory-size#1TC=windows-7

Upvotes: 3

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