Fail to start matlab engine in python 2022b

I use MacBook Pro M1 chip with macOS13 and Python version is 3.9.13.

I installed the Matlab R2022b and followed the document to install engine API via pip with code :

python -m pip install matlabengine

However, when I call matlab engine, it is failed with the output

    raise RuntimeError("Could not find directory: {0}".format(engine_dir))
RuntimeError: Could not find directory: /Applications/MATLAB_R2022b.app/extern/engines/python/dist/matlab/engine/maca64

I find the directory that I can only find maci64.

May I know how could I start matlab.engine in Python?

[Praveen C]

Why does matlab make it so hard to use jupyter. It is as if they dont want us using matlab with jupyter.

Answer 1

[Jonathan Lilly]

I have the same issue. Perhaps an M1 chip issue?

Answer 2

[Charles King]

I think it is a M1 chip issue because I have the following directory: /Applications/MATLAB_R2022b.app/extern/engines/python/dist/matlab/engine/maci64

and

/Applications/MATLAB_R2022b.app/extern/engines/python/dist/matlab/engine/maca64

is what the script is looking for.

Answer 3

[Kannan]

Could you check the default install location of MATLAB? This can be done by going into the MATLAB Command Window and calling :

matlabroot

By default, you will find MATLAB installed at the following location

/Applications/MATLAB_R2022b.app

When MATLAB is not installed in the default location, the bin/architecture directory within the MATLAB root directory must be added to an environment variable. The path can be added to the environment variable within the shell startup configuration file:

# in .bashrc
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:<matlabroot>/bin/glnxa64

Could you try these steps to see if the error still persists?

[Jiaxin Peng]

Hi Kannan,

Many thanks for your response.

>> matlabroot

ans =

    '/Applications/MATLAB_R2022b.app'

I tried to check the root directory. It was the default one.

But when I show the package contents in /bin directory. I cannot find glnxa64 there.

[Brian Ross]

I too have MATLAB installed in the default location on my M1 machine. The only glnxa64 directory in the <matlabroot> directory is at /Applications/MATLAB_R2022b.app/help/includes/product/arch/glnxa64. I do not have a maca64 directory anywhere.

I take this to mean that there currently isn't any support in the matlabengine package for the Arm architecture.

[Prabhjot Billing]

I have the same isse on M1. It seems matlabengine is not supported on M1/ARM?

[Jiaxin Peng]

Yes, I think so.

The only solution to this is to install Python via Rosetta to keep the same arch-x86 of both MATLAB and Python.

if switch the shell to x86 platform and install homebrew and python, the problem should be solved. But I did not try the availability of this method. I gave up to use MATLAB engine.

[Jiaxin Peng]

Hi all,

I can installed matlabengine now. However, I faced another issue:

import matlab.engine
>>> eng = matlab.engine.start_matlab()
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.10/site-packages/matlab/engine/__init__.py", line 130, in start_matlab
    eng = future.result()
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.10/site-packages/matlab/engine/futureresult.py", line 67, in result
    return self.__future.result(timeout)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.10/site-packages/matlab/engine/matlabfuture.py", line 87, in result
    handle = pythonengine.getMATLAB(self._future)
matlab.engine.EngineError: Connection to process with Exchange: " " was lost.

May I know how to solve this?

Answer 4

[Hajar]

My MATLAB runtime root is at /usr/local/MATLAB_Runtime/R2022b on a GUI-less server Ubuntu 20.04 installation, so I checked

echo $LD_LIBRARY_PATH

And got nothing (it's not set) - am I required to install something else before R2022b to get this to work?

Then, I set the variable:

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/usr/local/MATLAB_Runtime/R2022b/glnxa64

Still got the following error with pip install:

RuntimeError: MATLAB R2022b installation not found. Install to default location, or add <matlabroot>/bin/glnxa64 to LD_LIBRARY_PATH, where <matlabroot> is the root of a MATLAB R2022b installation.