Remove timestamps (date & time) that appear on every figure by default

Running Matlab R2021a on a MacBook Pro, I'm getting time stamps on every single figure by default.

Example output, with the offending timestamp on the lower left:

plot(rand(1,10))

I searched the Internet a few times and couldn't find anyone having the same problem as me. Too few people upgraded to R2021a, perhaps? Or maybe Mac-specific?

What I tried:

findobj(gcf, 'Type', 'text')

ans =

0×0 empty GraphicsPlaceholder array.

Eyeballing the gcf properties didn't turn up anything either, but lmk if you want the full output (I may post it as a comment).

Output with axis off:

I'm stumped!

[Egor Ananyev]

>> gcf
ans = 
  Figure (1) with properties:

      Number: 1
        Name: ''
       Color: [1 1 1]
    Position: [200 200 840 425]
       Units: 'pixels'

  Show all properties
                 Alphamap: [1×64 double]
             BeingDeleted: off
               BusyAction: 'queue'
            ButtonDownFcn: ''
                 Children: [1×1 Axes]
                 Clipping: on
          CloseRequestFcn: 'closereq'
                    Color: [1 1 1]
                 Colormap: [256×3 double]
              ContextMenu: [0×0 GraphicsPlaceholder]
                CreateFcn: @figureCreateFcn
              CurrentAxes: [1×1 Axes]
         CurrentCharacter: '`'
            CurrentObject: [0×0 GraphicsPlaceholder]
             CurrentPoint: [0 0]
                DeleteFcn: ''
             DockControls: on
                 FileName: ''
        GraphicsSmoothing: on
         HandleVisibility: 'on'
                     Icon: ''
            InnerPosition: [200 200 840 425]
            IntegerHandle: on
            Interruptible: on
           InvertHardcopy: on
              KeyPressFcn: ''
            KeyReleaseFcn: ''
                  MenuBar: 'figure'
                     Name: ''
                 NextPlot: 'add'
                   Number: 1
              NumberTitle: on
            OuterPosition: [200 200 840 504]
         PaperOrientation: 'portrait'
            PaperPosition: [-1.5833 2.5486 11.6667 5.9028]
        PaperPositionMode: 'auto'
                PaperSize: [8.5000 11]
                PaperType: 'usletter'
               PaperUnits: 'inches'
                   Parent: [1×1 Root]
                  Pointer: 'arrow'
        PointerShapeCData: [16×16 double]
      PointerShapeHotSpot: [1 1]
                 Position: [200 200 840 425]
                 Renderer: 'opengl'
             RendererMode: 'auto'
                   Resize: on
               Scrollable: off
            SelectionType: 'normal'
           SizeChangedFcn: ''
                      Tag: ''
                  ToolBar: 'auto'
                     Type: 'figure'
                    Units: 'pixels'
                 UserData: []
                  Visible: on
      WindowButtonDownFcn: ''
    WindowButtonMotionFcn: ''
        WindowButtonUpFcn: ''
        WindowKeyPressFcn: ''
      WindowKeyReleaseFcn: ''
     WindowScrollWheelFcn: ''
              WindowState: 'normal'
              WindowStyle: 'normal'
                 XDisplay: 'Quartz'
                 Alphamap: [1×64 double]
             BeingDeleted: off
               BusyAction: 'queue'
            ButtonDownFcn: ''
                 Children: [1×1 Axes]
                 Clipping: on
          CloseRequestFcn: 'closereq'
                    Color: [1 1 1]
                 Colormap: [256×3 double]
              ContextMenu: [0×0 GraphicsPlaceholder]
                CreateFcn: @figureCreateFcn
              CurrentAxes: [1×1 Axes]
         CurrentCharacter: ''
            CurrentObject: [0×0 GraphicsPlaceholder]
             CurrentPoint: [0 0]
                DeleteFcn: ''
             DockControls: on
                 FileName: ''
        GraphicsSmoothing: on
         HandleVisibility: 'off'
                     Icon: ''
            InnerPosition: [0 0 200 150]
            IntegerHandle: on
            Interruptible: on
           InvertHardcopy: on
              KeyPressFcn: ''
            KeyReleaseFcn: ''
                  MenuBar: 'none'
                     Name: ''
                 NextPlot: 'add'
                   Number: 3
              NumberTitle: on
            OuterPosition: [0 0 200 150]
         PaperOrientation: 'portrait'
            PaperPosition: [2.8611 4.4583 2.7778 2.0833]
        PaperPositionMode: 'auto'
                PaperSize: [8.5000 11]
                PaperType: 'usletter'
               PaperUnits: 'inches'
                   Parent: [1×1 Root]
                  Pointer: 'arrow'
        PointerShapeCData: [16×16 double]
      PointerShapeHotSpot: [1 1]
                 Position: [0 0 200 150]
                 Renderer: 'opengl'
             RendererMode: 'auto'
                   Resize: on
               Scrollable: off
            SelectionType: 'normal'
           SizeChangedFcn: ''
                      Tag: ''
                  ToolBar: 'none'
                     Type: 'figure'
                    Units: 'pixels'
                 UserData: []
                  Visible: off
      WindowButtonDownFcn: ''
    WindowButtonMotionFcn: ''
        WindowButtonUpFcn: ''
        WindowKeyPressFcn: ''
      WindowKeyReleaseFcn: ''
     WindowScrollWheelFcn: ''
              WindowState: 'normal'
              WindowStyle: 'normal'
                 XDisplay: 'Quartz'

[dpb]

That is bizarre, indeed...no Mac here so no can try anything specific to it.

I'll just note that more than likely the object is a child of the axes, not the figure.

What does

hAx=gca;
hAx.XAxis

return?

You have tried the brute force

clear classes
rehash

to wipe any spurious aliased functions and force a rebuild of the code cache, I presume?

[Egor Ananyev]

Just tried clearing classes and rehashing -- same thing is happening.

I assumed this is not axes, because I tried "axis off" and that did nothing (the last image in the post above).

Here's the output of .XAxis:

  NumericRuler with properties:

             Limits: [-0.0500 0.0500]
              Scale: 'linear'
           Exponent: 0
         TickValues: [-0.0500 0 0.0500]
    TickLabelFormat: '%g'

  Show all properties
                    Children: [0×0 GraphicsPlaceholder]
                       Color: [0.1500 0.1500 0.1500]
                   Direction: 'normal'
                    Exponent: 0
                ExponentMode: 'auto'
                   FontAngle: 'normal'
                    FontName: 'Helvetica Neue'
                    FontSize: 13
               FontSmoothing: on
                  FontWeight: 'normal'
            HandleVisibility: 'off'
                       Label: [1×1 Text]
    LabelHorizontalAlignment: 'center'
                      Limits: [-0.0500 0.0500]
            LimitsChangedFcn: ''
                  LimitsMode: 'manual'
                   LineWidth: 0.5000
                   MinorTick: off
             MinorTickValues: [-0.0400 -0.0300 -0.0200 -0.0100 0.0100 0.0200 0.0300 0.0400]
         MinorTickValuesMode: 'auto'
                      Parent: [1×1 Axes]
                       Scale: 'linear'
               TickDirection: 'in'
           TickDirectionMode: 'auto'
             TickLabelFormat: '%g'
        TickLabelInterpreter: 'tex'
           TickLabelRotation: 0
       TickLabelRotationMode: 'auto'
                  TickLabels: {3×1 cell}
              TickLabelsMode: 'auto'
                  TickLength: [0.0100 0.0250]
                  TickValues: [-0.0500 0 0.0500]
              TickValuesMode: 'auto'
                     Visible: on

[dpb]

NumericRuler with properties:

That's what I was curious about -- checking that it wasn't somehow generating a DatetimeRuler axes object instead of NumericRuler -- that's the one that does put out a time string.

Is this a new install; has this done this from the first or is it a new symptom?

Do you have any earlier releases installed or have you had an earlier release for which, if have, I presume doesn't have the problem?

I think this is worthy a support call on install/startup issues if it is a new installation; I'd recommend that first before submitting a bug report.

[Egor Ananyev]

Thanks for the response! It's a new install on a completely fresh Mac OS Big Sur 11.4 system; I don't have an earlier release, so I can't check if it's an issue there.

[Walter Roberson]

So my suggestion turned out to be the correct one to follow?

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

I speculate that you just might have a groot property set. Something like

get(groot,'DefaultAxesXLabel')

ans = 
  0×0 empty GraphicsPlaceholder array.

=====

After further discussion, the key to this situation was to use

functions( get(groot, 'defaultFigureCreateFcn'))

to track down a function that had been set by a software package the user was using.

[Egor Ananyev]

Am I simply to run the command after any plot? I get the following:

>> get(groot,'DefaultAxesXLabel ')

Error using matlab.ui.Root/get

Unrecognized property XLabel for class Axes.

[Walter Roberson]

You put in a space after the word Label before the ' . The ' should be directly after the final letter.

[dpb]

Interesting idea, Walter, but with a new downloaded install, seems unlikely Egor would have managed to have done.

I thought I'd try out the idea and see if can duplicate the symptom, but I can't figure out a syntax which would set the default label to the current time string as he's showing. Could set it to a fixed date string, but not how to get a function callback that way.

I may be just not familiar enough with setting the root properties, though, I've never messed with them all that much; just a couple of minor tweaks of constants.

[Egor Ananyev]

Oops, you're right.

>> get(groot,'DefaultAxesXLabel')

ans =

0×0 empty GraphicsPlaceholder array.

[Walter Roberson]

get(groot, 'Default')

ans = struct with fields:
             defaultFigurePosition: [671 661 577 433]
    defaultFigurePaperPositionMode: 'auto'
                defaultFigureColor: [1 1 1]
              defaultFigureVisible: off
              defaultFigureToolBar: 'none'
              defaultFigureMenuBar: 'none'

might give some ideas.

[Egor Ananyev]

>> get(groot, 'Default')

ans =

struct with fields:

defaultFigurePosition: [200 200 840 425]

defaultFigurePaperPositionMode: 'auto'

defaultFigureVisible: on

defaultFigureToolBar: 'auto'

defaultFigureMenuBar: 'figure'

defaultTextFontName: 'Helvetica Neue'

defaultTextFontSize: 14

defaultAxesFontName: 'Helvetica Neue'

defaultAxesFontSize: 14

defaultFigureColor: [1 1 1]

defaultFigureCreateFcn: @figureCreateFcn

[Walter Roberson]

Ah, that figureCreateFcn might be setting properties.

[Egor Ananyev]

Do you have any idea how to look inside that function, Walter?

[dpb]

Try

which -all figureCreateFcn

if it's hidden or private that won't show it, of course.

After that, one can always resort to grep to find where the string might be located in the massive chain of stuff MATLAB installs. And with all the toolboxes you have, it's gargantuan.

[Egor Ananyev]

Looks like it's hidden or private.

Not sure about the latter course ':D

[dpb]

I dunno about Mac OS utilities; with the Linux-like heritage I'd guess there's one.

You could always try the club of

set(groot,'defaultFigureCreateFcn','remove')

[Walter Roberson]

functions( get(groot, 'defaultFigureCreateFcn'))

should tell you the path to the function.

[Egor Ananyev]

Wow... I actually found it. It's a custom-made function written by someone whose code I'm working with. Includes this gem:

set(groot, 'DefaultFigureCreateFcn', @figureCreateFcn)

...and then writes out the function.

Sorry for all the trouble guys! I pretty much never work with anyone else's code, so it didn't occur to me that someone would do such a thing XD

[Egor Ananyev]

Yes, Walter, your answer is better. Could you update it with the functions command for locating it?

Answer 2

[dpb]

While not the answer to the bizarre behavior, a workaround until that can be found and resolved would be

delete(findall(gcf,'type','textbox'))

right after creating a new plot.

[Egor Ananyev]

Thanks, I thought I tried this but this time it worked! Just needs the parentheses closed.

[dpb]

You also must use findall and not findobj because the handle is hidden so findobj doesn't locate the offending textbox.

[Egor Ananyev]

That was it! I was using findobj, you're right.

[dpb]

Ayup...and thanks for the catch for the missing closing paren; I just realized what was meant/missing.

Came back to just comment that I presume Steven will be back after the holiday weekend with more from the TMW end; if he doesn't for some reason, I'd submit a bug report for new install issue. Link to this Q? so don't have to repeat the diagnostics gone through.

[Steven Lord]

Nothing here jumps out at me as a cause of this behavior. Please contact Technical Support and ask them to help determine what's causing those extra labels to appear, linking to this question to provide the Support staff the background and information about the investigation we started.

[dpb]

Will be interesting to hear what is the end resolution of this specter, indeed... :)

Answer 3

[Steven Lord]

Let's make sure first that no one has written functions that are taking precedence over the built-in graphics functions. Can you show us what each of these lines display in the Command Window?

which -all plot
which -all axes
which -all xlabel

[Egor Ananyev]

Thanks for the response!

>> which -all plot
built-in (/Applications/MATLAB_R2021a.app/toolbox/matlab/graph2d/plot)
/Applications/MATLAB_R2021a.app/toolbox/matlab/datatypes/tabular/@tabular/tabular.m  % tabular method
/Applications/MATLAB_R2021a.app/toolbox/matlab/polyfun/@alphaShape/plot.m            % alphaShape method
/Applications/MATLAB_R2021a.app/toolbox/stats/classreg/@LinearModel/plot.m           % LinearModel method
/Applications/MATLAB_R2021a.app/toolbox/matlab/polyfun/@polyshape/plot.m             % polyshape method
/Applications/MATLAB_R2021a.app/toolbox/matlab/graphfun/@graph/plot.m                % graph method
/Applications/MATLAB_R2021a.app/toolbox/matlab/graphfun/@digraph/plot.m              % digraph method
/Applications/MATLAB_R2021a.app/toolbox/matlab/bigdata/@tall/plot.m                  % tall method
/Applications/MATLAB_R2021a.app/toolbox/curvefit/curvefit/@cfit/plot.m               % cfit method
/Applications/MATLAB_R2021a.app/toolbox/curvefit/curvefit/@sfit/plot.m               % sfit method
/Applications/MATLAB_R2021a.app/toolbox/wavelet/wavelet/@ntree/plot.m                % ntree method
/Applications/MATLAB_R2021a.app/toolbox/wavelet/wavelet/@dtree/plot.m                % dtree method
/Applications/MATLAB_R2021a.app/toolbox/wavelet/wavelet/@wdectree/plot.m             % wdectree method
/Applications/MATLAB_R2021a.app/examples/wavelet/data/@wvtree/plot.m                 % wvtree method
/Applications/MATLAB_R2021a.app/examples/wavelet/data/@edwttree/plot.m               % edwttree method
/Applications/MATLAB_R2021a.app/examples/wavelet/data/@rwvtree/plot.m                % rwvtree method
/Applications/MATLAB_R2021a.app/toolbox/signal/signal/@dspdata/plot.m                % dspdata method
/Applications/MATLAB_R2021a.app/toolbox/wavelet/wavedemo/@wvtree/plot.m              % wvtree method
/Applications/MATLAB_R2021a.app/toolbox/wavelet/wavedemo/@edwttree/plot.m            % edwttree method
/Applications/MATLAB_R2021a.app/toolbox/wavelet/wavedemo/@rwvtree/plot.m             % rwvtree method
/Applications/MATLAB_R2021a.app/toolbox/coder/half/@half/plot.p                      % half method
/Applications/MATLAB_R2021a.app/toolbox/bioinfo/bioinfo/@phytree/plot.m              % phytree method
/Applications/MATLAB_R2021a.app/toolbox/bioinfo/microarray/@clustergram/plot.m       % clustergram method
/Applications/MATLAB_R2021a.app/toolbox/bioinfo/microarray/@HeatMap/plot.m           % HeatMap method
/Applications/MATLAB_R2021a.app/toolbox/matlab/timeseries/@timeseries/plot.m         % timeseries method
>> which -all axes
built-in (/Applications/MATLAB_R2021a.app/toolbox/matlab/graphics/axis/axes)
>> which -all xlabel
/Applications/MATLAB_R2021a.app/toolbox/matlab/graph2d/xlabel.m

[dpb]

None of those look to be out of place -- you do have several toolboxes I don't have but one still wouldn't think those would be the culprit.

Since Steven has seen this and it's a holiday weekend, I'd guess best/all that is to be done at the moment is wait until Tuesday when TMW gets back to work.

This is certainly bizarre behavior, however, agreed.

[dpb]

Oh! Just a thought -- is the datetime string selectable in the figure editor, by any chance?

You could try to save a .fig file and attach it and see if anybody can poke around in its content and find anything..

While Mac isn't as numerous as the other OS, there are enough users that it would seem to be unusual nobody else has reported an issue.

[Steven Lord]

dpb's comment about "several toolboxes" pointed out to me that we haven't asked you what toolboxes you have installed. I wonder if you have a third-party toolbox installed that tries to set some default figure or axes properties on startup that affects the appearance of the window. Please post the list of products displayed by this command (replace your license number with stars or just remove it entirely.)

ver

[dpb]

Ah! That is a good thought, Steven..I didn't think about the 3rd party possibility earlier, either.

[Egor Ananyev]

Thanks for the responses!

Yes, the timestamp is selectable! I'm attaching a .fig file.

My toolboxes:

>> ver
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MATLAB Version: 9.10.0.1649659 (R2021a) Update 1
MATLAB License Number: unknown
Operating System: macOS  Version: 11.4 Build: 20F71 
Java Version: Java 1.8.0_202-b08 with Oracle Corporation Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM mixed mode
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MATLAB                                                Version 9.10        (R2021a)
Simulink                                              Version 10.3        (R2021a)
Audio Toolbox                                         Version 3.0         (R2021a)
Bioinformatics Toolbox                                Version 4.15.1      (R2021a)
Computer Vision Toolbox                               Version 10.0        (R2021a)
Control System Toolbox                                Version 10.10       (R2021a)
Curve Fitting Toolbox                                 Version 3.5.13      (R2021a)
DSP System Toolbox                                    Version 9.12        (R2021a)
Database Toolbox                                      Version 10.1        (R2021a)
Deep Learning Toolbox                                 Version 14.2        (R2021a)
Embedded Coder                                        Version 7.6         (R2021a)
Image Acquisition Toolbox                             Version 6.4         (R2021a)
Image Processing Toolbox                              Version 11.3        (R2021a)
Instrument Control Toolbox                            Version 4.4         (R2021a)
Lidar Toolbox                                         Version 1.1         (R2021a)
MATLAB Coder                                          Version 5.2         (R2021a)
MATLAB Compiler                                       Version 8.2         (R2021a)
MATLAB Compiler SDK                                   Version 6.10        (R2021a)
MATLAB Report Generator                               Version 5.10        (R2021a)
Mapping Toolbox                                       Version 5.1         (R2021a)
Mixed-Signal Blockset                                 Version 2.0         (R2021a)
Optimization Toolbox                                  Version 9.1         (R2021a)
Parallel Computing Toolbox                            Version 7.4         (R2021a)
Partial Differential Equation Toolbox                 Version 3.6         (R2021a)
Reinforcement Learning Toolbox                        Version 2.0         (R2021a)
Signal Processing Toolbox                             Version 8.6         (R2021a)
Simulink 3D Animation                                 Version 9.2         (R2021a)
Simulink Check                                        Version 5.1         (R2021a)
Simulink Coder                                        Version 9.5         (R2021a)
Simulink Compiler                                     Version 1.2         (R2021a)
Simulink Control Design                               Version 5.7         (R2021a)
Simulink Coverage                                     Version 5.2         (R2021a)
Simulink Design Optimization                          Version 3.9.1       (R2021a)
Simulink Design Verifier                              Version 4.5         (R2021a)
Simulink Desktop Real-Time                            Version 5.12        (R2021a)
Simulink PLC Coder                                    Version 3.4         (R2021a)
Simulink Report Generator                             Version 5.10        (R2021a)
Simulink Requirements                                 Version 1.7         (R2021a)
Simulink Test                                         Version 3.4         (R2021a)
Stateflow                                             Version 10.4        (R2021a)
Statistics and Machine Learning Toolbox               Version 12.1        (R2021a)
Symbolic Math Toolbox                                 Version 8.7         (R2021a)
Wavelet Toolbox                                       Version 5.6         (R2021a)

[dpb]

>> hF=open('untitled.fig')
Undefined function handle. 
hF = 
  Figure (1) with properties:

      Number: 1
        Name: ''
       Color: [1 1 1]
    Position: [1246 484 200 150]
       Units: 'pixels'

  Show all properties
>> hTxt=findall(hF,'type','textbox')
hTxt = 
  TextBox (03-Jul-2021 10:34:20) with properties:

             String: '03-Jul-2021 10:34:20'
           FontName: 'Helvetica Neue'
           FontSize: 8
         FontWeight: 'normal'
              Color: [0 0 0]
    BackgroundColor: 'none'
          EdgeColor: [0 0 0]
          LineStyle: 'none'
          LineWidth: 0.5000
           Position: [0 0 0.6025 0.1600]
              Units: 'normalized'

  Show all properties
>> hTxt.Parent
ans = 
    AnnotationPane
>> 

When open the fig file on remote system, there's an undefined callback function buried in there somewhere -- it's probably the culprit.

If search including for objects which have been set as having hidden handles, then it shows up as above.

Probably with this info, TMW can delve into the bowels and figure out what/who is the culprit here.

Your list of Toolboxes plus having Simulink is far, far beyond my install which is only base MATLAB plus four or five basic toolboxes.

I guess one could begin by paring down the search path selectively to remove a sizable subset of those and see how far one has to go for the symptom to disappear, then do a binary search putting stuff back to find out when it reappears.

TMW probably have better ways to go at it...

[dpb]

>> ver
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MATLAB Version: 9.9.0.1592791 (R2020b) Update 5
MATLAB License Number: xxxxx
Operating System: Microsoft Windows ...
Java Version: Java 1.8.0_202-b08 with Oracle Corporation Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM mixed mode
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MATLAB                                                Version 9.9         (R2020b)
Curve Fitting Toolbox                                 Version 3.5.12      (R2020b)
MATLAB Compiler                                       Version 8.1         (R2020b)
Optimization Toolbox                                  Version 9.0         (R2020b)
Signal Processing Toolbox                             Version 8.5         (R2020b)
Statistics and Machine Learning Toolbox               Version 12.0        (R2020b)
>> 

As can see, besides being a release earlier (I generally only do the b releases), there's a veritable plethora of possibilities beyond which I have that could be the bad boy...or, of course, it could also be an artifact somehow introduced in R2021a or unique to Mac.