How can I prevent or recover from a "joystick device error" during timer callback?

I have a script that repeatedly reads the position of a joystick initiated by vrjoystick() using read(). The repetition is currently handled by a timer() callback. This works quite well... most of the time. However, the timer will occasionally crash and return the following error:

"Joystick device error: Failed to read joystick status."

Below is a minimum working example. Unfortunately you will need a joystick to run it. It will often run successfully for a few minutes before crashing, so please wait a bit before responding that it works.

Thank you very much for any help you can provide, even just brainstorming.

function MWE
    figure('CloseRequestFcn','delete(timerfind); delete(gcf);');
    a = axes('XLim',[-1,1],'YLim',[-1,1],'NextPlot','replacechildren');
    j = vrjoystick(1);
    t = timer('ExecutionMode','fixedRate','Period',0.01,'TimerFcn',@t_Callback);
    start(t);
    function t_Callback(~,~)
        [position,~,~] = read(j);
        plot(a,position(1),position(2),'ko');
    end
end

Answer 1

[Jeffrey Girard]

Ok, success! Recovery can be solved by restarting the joystick within the catch-statement of a try-catch block. Does anyone have insight into why this is happening and/or how to prevent it?

function MWE
    figure('CloseRequestFcn','delete(timerfind); delete(gcf);');
    a = axes('XLim',[-1,1],'YLim',[-1,1],'NextPlot','replacechildren');
    j = vrjoystick(1);
    t = timer('ExecutionMode','fixedRate','Period',0.01,'TimerFcn',@t_Callback);
    start(t);
    function t_Callback(~,~)
        try
            [position,~,~] = read(j);
        catch
            j = vrjoystick(1);
            return;
        end
        plot(a,position(1),position(2),'ko');
    end
end