Killing a (mex) Function When It Doesn't Respond to Ctrl-C or Ctrl-Break Under WIN64

Is there a way to kill a (mex) function running in MATLAB and which doesn't respond to Ctrl-C or CTrl-Break, other than by killing the whole MATLAB process (session)? To be concrete, assume R2014A WIN 64.

Thanks.

Answer 1

[Jan]

No, you have to kill the Matlab process.

Answer 2

[Peter Lawrence]

Yes, it's part of the "undocumented" matlab stuff, but at least it works, and works well.

http://undocumentedmatlab.com/blog/mex-ctrl-c-interrupt

and/or

https://www.advanpix.com/2016/07/02/devnotes-3-proper-handling-of-ctrl-c-in-mex-module

[Mark Stone]

Nice. This addresses coding of a mex file so that it can be interrupted. However, it does not address the interruptibility of a mex file provided without source code. So if I understand correctly, I would still be out of luck if trying to run a mex file which was not designed to be interrupted and for which I don't have access to source code.

Answer 3

[Victor]

Who accepted that unacceptable answer!?

No but seriously this is sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo annoying!

[Walter Roberson]

If my memory serves me correctly, I am the person who marked the answer as Accepted. Jan's response was a correct response to what was asked, about whether there was a way to do something. Neither Jan nor the rest of us can force MATLAB to do things it is not designed for. We might not always like what happens with MATLAB, but a correct answer deserves to be Accepted.

[Bryan Cunitz]

I disagree. I think the accepted answer should be changed since the "undocumented" solution is the best answer since it IS possible. If Mathworks wants to promote the answers forum then it should encourage undocumented solutions otherwise people will just move towards other forums.

just my 2 cents

[James Tursa]

Huh? OP asked about a mex function that specifically does NOT respond to Ctrl-C or the like. He makes that very clear in his response to Peter that he is interested in interrupting compiled mex routines that have no special coding to respond to Ctrl-C. Jan's answer is correct for the question asked.

Peter's response is definitely valuable and related to the question, but it requires recoding and recompiling the mex routine, something the OP specifically points out was not the intent of his original question. Plus, it is not clear to me what would happen in that 2nd link if the MATLAB Memory Manager was interrupted in the middle of something when its Worker Thread got terminated. I haven't inestigated this, but I can easily envision a crash scenario.

Both responses deservedly got reputation points. I don't think there is anything to complain about here ...

[Pavel Holoborodko]

@"Plus, it is not clear to me what would happen in that 2nd link if the MATLAB Memory Manager was interrupted in the middle of something when its Worker Thread got terminated."

Suggestions to the situation are provided in the post. In short, WorkerThread must be used for computations, not for memory allocations (especially not by MATLAB Memory Manager functions). It is really bad idea to mix allocations & computations in (any) numerical code anyway.