Java-related error on start-up and when attempting to generate plots in Matlab

I have recently installed R2020-b, but upon launching Matlab, I get the following error message:

Exception in thread "Startup Class Loader": java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: com/jogamp/common/os/Platform
    at com.jogamp.opengl.GLProfile.<clinit>(GLProfile.java:146)
    at com.mathworks.hg.peer.JOGLInitializer.initializeJOGL(JOGLInitializer.java:47)
    at com.mathworks.hg.peer.JOGLInitializer.<clinit>(JOGLInitializer.java:25)
    at java.lang.Class.forName0(Native Method)
    at java.lang.Class.forName(Class.java:264)
    at com.mathworks.mde.desk.StartupClassLoader.loadClass(StartupClassLoader.java:258)
    at com.mathworks.mde.desk.StartupClassLoader.access$1000(StartupClassLoader.java:25)
    at com.mathworks.mde.desk.StartupClassLoader$2.run(StartupClassLoader.java:245)
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:748)
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: com.jogamp.common.os.Platform
    at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:382)
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:424)
    at sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader.loadClass(Launcher.java:349)
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:357)
    ... 9 more
        

Also, when I try to run the "plot" command, I get the following error which seems to be related to some Java files:

    Exception in thread "AWT-EventQueue-0": java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: com/jogamp/common/type/WriteCloneable
	at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass1(Native Method)
	at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass(ClassLoader.java:763)
	at java.security.SecureClassLoader.defineClass(SecureClassLoader.java:142)
	at java.net.URLClassLoader.defineClass(URLClassLoader.java:468)
	at java.net.URLClassLoader.access$100(URLClassLoader.java:74)
	at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:369)
	at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:363)
	at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
	at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:362)
	at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:424)
	at sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader.loadClass(Launcher.java:349)
	at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:357)
	at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass1(Native Method)
	at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass(ClassLoader.java:763)
	at java.security.SecureClassLoader.defineClass(SecureClassLoader.java:142)
	at java.net.URLClassLoader.defineClass(URLClassLoader.java:468)
	at java.net.URLClassLoader.access$100(URLClassLoader.java:74)
	at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:369)
	at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:363)
	at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
	at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:362)
	at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:424)
	at sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader.loadClass(Launcher.java:349)
	at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:357)
	at com.mathworks.hg.peer.GraphicsPeerWithComponent.createJOGLCanvas(GraphicsPeerWithComponent.java:19)
	at com.mathworks.hg.peer.GraphicsPeer.doCreateCanvas(GraphicsPeer.java:119)
	at com.mathworks.hg.peer.GraphicsPeer.access$100(GraphicsPeer.java:16)
	at com.mathworks.hg.peer.GraphicsPeer$1.run(GraphicsPeer.java:174)
	at java.awt.event.InvocationEvent.dispatch(InvocationEvent.java:311)
	at java.awt.EventQueue.dispatchEventImpl(EventQueue.java:758)
	at java.awt.EventQueue.access$500(EventQueue.java:97)
	at java.awt.EventQueue$3.run(EventQueue.java:709)
	at java.awt.EventQueue$3.run(EventQueue.java:703)
	at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
	at java.security.ProtectionDomain$JavaSecurityAccessImpl.doIntersectionPrivilege(ProtectionDomain.java:74)
	at java.awt.EventQueue.dispatchEvent(EventQueue.java:728)
	at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpOneEventForFilters(EventDispatchThread.java:205)
	at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEventsForFilter(EventDispatchThread.java:116)
	at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEventsForHierarchy(EventDispatchThread.java:105)
	at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEvents(EventDispatchThread.java:101)
	at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEvents(EventDispatchThread.java:93)
	at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.run(EventDispatchThread.java:82)
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: com.jogamp.common.type.WriteCloneable
	at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:382)
	at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:424)
	at sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader.loadClass(Launcher.java:349)
	at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:357)
	... 42 more
        

I tried clean-copy re-instrallation several times, but that doesen't fix the issue either.

Does anyone know how I can get around this problem?

Thanks.

[Daniel Panfili]

Having this issue as well, no fix yet. Following for future comments.

Answer 1

[Clifford Lang]

Several of our users were seeing a similar problem in our organization in the last few days. Our issues seemed to be our antivirus (Cisco Amp) blocking a specific JAR file. We've added the file to Amp's whitelist and are testing now.

One of our users reported he "...launched Matlab from the command window with the –noopengl flag and it works that way (though without OpenGL graphics, but still plots)."

[Pooyan Kheirkhah]

Thank you! Launching from commmand windw worked.

Do you know when the updated installation file will be available for downloading from the Mathworks website?

[Daniel Panfili]

Thanks Clifford! Command line also worked for me.

For others, I made it a more permanent solution by creating a batch file in $MATLABPATH/bin, then edited the Matlab shortcut properties to direct to my "launchMatlab.bat" instead of "matlab.exe." Bypasses the need to open a command window and let's your existing shortcut.

@echo off
matlab -noopengl

[Pooyan Kheirkhah]

That's a good idea, thank for sharing it.

The only problem I had so far was when I save figurs as jpg or png, which appear blank. I guess it has to do with the -noopengl option.

[Larry Stern]

Clifford, can you please tell us the specfifc jar file and directory that you are whitelisting in Amp, so that others can implement the fix? Thanks in advance.

[Clifford Lang]

Based on info from the users (I'm the account admin, not a user), it appears to be "gluegen-rt.jar" (possibly, specifically gluegen-rt-2.3.2.jar).

I'm reaching out to our Amp admin to see what he specifically whitelisted. Will update when I have that info.

[Clifford Lang]

Ok, the tech who worked on the Amp piece says:

"...the jar file has to be renamed to removed the -version. so it should show gluegen-rt.jar."

He also said he

"...put in an [Amp] exclusion for the root of the Matlab folder."

[Larry Stern]

Clifford, on the AMP client, if you click settings, then scroll down to "Protection Exclusions" it should show what directory was whitelisted. It would be helpful if you could report that back. It also sounded like they had you remove the version specifc string to make it more general. However, I know that the issue effects multiple versions of Matlab from both 2019 and 2020, and our university I think has 40,000 matlab seats. So, doing a huge rename is not possible. But, maybe after I see what was done on your end then perhaps I can think of a more general solution. Thanks.

[Clifford Lang]

I believe we have the ability to view/edit that setting turned off on the client machines (I don't see "Protection Exclusions" on the client on my workstation). However logging in to our AMP manager, the only exclusion we have in place for Matlab is:

"Path C:\Program Files\MATLAB\"

Hope that helps.

[Pooyan Kheirkhah]

Larry and Clifford, thank you for following up on this issue so intently. Could you please let us know whether there has been any solutions to this, so far? Does renaming any specific jar file (or removing /adding them to an exception list) help solving the problem? What about a clean installation? I can now operate MATLAB from command windown with the -noopengl option, but I cannot save figures in any format other than fig (therefore taking screenshots for demonstrations, etc.).

Again, thanks very much for your help.

[Rachid Belaroussi]

"matlab –noopengl" worked for me on MatlabR2021 (previously crashing, during my first install and first use of the product). I can save figures.

Answer 2

[Craig Janssen]

I am the AMP administrator for our company. We have put this exclusion - C:\Program Files\MATLAB\ as a test. I am waiting on the Matlab users to test to see if it fixes the issue.

I will update when I get feedback from users on if it works or not.

-Craig

[Larry Stern]

Craig. They will need to restore glugen-rt.jar before it will work. As best I can tell amp deletes it when it accessed. I find no files in quarantine. Adding an exclusion is the first step. But not the only step to get back to a working MATLAB.

[Craig Janssen]

Larry,

It is a work in progress agreed. But some of our users are seeing the problem and others are not. So it is hard to know exactly what is going from an AMP side. I am looking over your updates for more suggestions.

Thanks,

Craig

Answer 3

[Larry Stern]

With Cisco amp end users can not add an exclusion. The amp administrator has to do it. Our group excluded the file glugen-rt.jar. I can send the exact string latter today. As best I can tell amp will delete the file when accessed. Looking in the quarantine list nothing is there. After amp policy sync confirms the exclusion is in place you can then move a copy of glugen-rt.jar back to its correct location. Or do a full uninstall reinstall. After that MATLAB works correctly. I’ve had some versions of MATLAB not want to fully uninstall so you need to look and either do some pretty hard windows tricks to get the file to delete or just rename the folder before you do the new install. Or that will fail on you after you waited an hour for it to complete.

Note that glugen-rt.jar goes in:

C:\Program Files\MATLAB\R20XXx\java\jarext

Where R20XXx dentoes your specific version of Matlab such as R2020a etc.

The location would differ if you installed Matlab to a location differtent from the default.

Answer 4

[Larry Stern]

Also as an FYI. I opened a case with MATLAB technical support on this topic. I have communicated my findings to them. They told me that they escalated it to the engineering team and they, in turn, will contact the correct group at Cisco in order to resolve this for the global community.

Answer 5

[Larry Stern]

I looked to see what exclusion our AMP Admin group used. It was:

glugen\-rt.*\.jar

I have tried restoring glugen-rt.jar to at least 4 different versions of Matlab and restoring this one file seems to work so far.

It migth be better to only excldue this one file vs all of the MATLAB directory structure.

[Craig Janssen]

I am trying this exclusion to see if it will help. We are having some push back from users on doing a full re-installation of MatLab.

Craig

[Larry Stern]

As I mentioned before, you need several thiings in place for the solution to work:

1) assuming your local organization has blocled users from adding their own exceptions to AMP, then the AMP Administrator needs to add the exclusion. Our organization is effectively excluding one file, with:

glugen\-rt.*\.jar

2) the user with the issue needs to verify that the exlusion has propogated to their local client. If not, try "sync policy" and look again.

3) You will need to locate one copy of glugen-rt.jar, as AMP seems to delete the file, or do one singe reisntall in order to get the file. As best I can tell, the same file has been in use by Matlab at least as far back as 2017x. Copy this file to Matlab's .\java\jarext folder.

4) quit Matlab if running and relaunch. Java errors gone at launch? A good test is the "bench" command, as it does some simple graphing.

[Craig Janssen]

Larry,

We pretty much followed the steps listed above and got the issue resolved. Getting a copy of the jar file was possible from AMP console -> File repository. AMP administrator can request a copy get moved to there and then download it.

For a stop gap measure, it is working nicely.

Thanks for the starting point on how to get the issue resolved.

Craig

[Larry Stern]

Sounds good Craig. Im not an amp administrator so I didn’t get that choice. So for anyone without access to the amp repository, they can do either a reinstall or get the file from a machine that didn’t have amp installed. Also FYI there is still no word on whether Cisco has been informed at all about any of this. Mathworks seems reluctant to do so. I opened a ticket at my university on this but got no response. I can’t open a ticket with Cisco since I’m not an amp license holder. Maybe you can try on your end.

Answer 6

[Larry Stern]

Note that I have no way of knowing for certain if the glugen-rt.jar file is, in fact, an infected file. Mathworks seems to be using the same file for years. So far, no user has reported any virus behaviour on any machine that has it. My suspicion is that it is a false postive by AMP. Potentially, they can fix it by using a longer signature that eliminates glugen-rt.jar from being flagged while still catching files that have whatever content they are actually looking for.

[Craig Janssen]

Based on what the AMP console and Talos is showing it appears to be a false positive. AMP can be very particular on certain types of files. I figured out that I can get a copy of the jar file in question from AMP's file repo. We are trying that to see if we can avoid a full re-install.

From Talos -

SHA256

D6B12EBCB3086F3658EE954FCA9EECBE517368ECEE29CEA12F8EA6DA5A44424D

FILE SIZE 328947 bytes

SAMPLE TYPE Zip archive data, at least v1.0 to extract

AMP DETECTION NAME *Detection not found.*Limited to SHA256 lookup

ASSOCIATED DOMAINS FOR THIS HASH

Domains not available

DETECTION ALIASES

No aliases detected.

[Larry Stern]

I'm operating under the assumption that it is a false positive, and AMP modifying their signature file so that the string is a little longer should fix it.

I opened a ticket with Mathworks on this issue.

Their engineering team is suppsoed to be contacting the folks at Cisco and hopefully come up with a solution that fixes this issue for the global community.