Startup On Network Drive Install

This may be futile here, but I'll give it a go before bugging TMW Tech Support...

I'll begin with the caveat I really don't follow how IT has set up default user locations, but there's a path to a network drive that looks something like

[\\mfs0.institutioninitials.edu\redirectempdocs\firstname.lastname\My Documents]

Under this I have subdirectory MATLAB and

 4/18/2019  15:20         <DIR>    .
 4/18/2019  15:20         <DIR>    ..
12/12/2018  16:38         <DIR>    CAMPAIGN
 5/15/2019  15:58         <DIR>    RESTRICTED
12/17/2018  12:46         <DIR>    XXXX_Foundation
 5/15/2019  14:11         <DIR>    utils
 6/23/2020  16:42         <DIR>    work

and the startup path from the preferences settings leaves me in the In the MATLAB work subdirectory on startup. That's all well and good.

The problem am having comes that at a prior time I mapped a drive to the former network drive "\\mfs0.institutioninitials.edu\firstname.lastname\My Documents" for convenience so could use just "Z:\CAMPAIGN\datafileXYZ.mat" instead of the full name. At some point IT reconfigured the network drives and that mapping was broken...I have now fixed the registry references to the previous mapping so Windows/File Explorer doesn't have the broken map any longer, but somewhere in the MATLAB startup there's still a reference to the above paths referring to the no longer extant Z: drive --

Warning: Name is nonexistent or not a directory: Z:\My Documents\MATLAB\work 
Warning: Name is nonexistent or not a directory: Z:\My Documents\MATLAB 
Warning: Name is nonexistent or not a directory: Z:\My Documents\MATLAB\Utills 

        ...
   	MathWorks software under terms specified in your company's restricted use license agreement.
>>

still shows up on the initial screen when starting MATLAB.

I can't for the life of me figure out where this is squirreled away to kill those references to Z:

Anybody here know the bowels of the install process well enough to have a clue where to look?

Answer 1

[dpb]

Well, I don't know exactly how or why, but the symptoms have now gone away -- I guess a couple restarts and resaving the default path eventually cleared those old references...

I'll delete the Q? later on after anybody who may have looked earlier has chance to see the follow up.

Answer 2

[Steven Lord]

If this problem recurs, most likely it's either stored in the user path definition (which you can control using the userpath function) or stored in the path definition file pathdef.m. The fact that this message stopped being displayed when you restored the default path suggests the pathdef hypothesis.

We strongly recommend against editing your pathdef.m file directly, so you'd want to use the pathtool function or the Set Path button in the Environment section of the Home tab of the toolstrip to modify the path.

[dpb]

Thanks for the feedback, Steven.

The puzzling thing is that the Z: reference was not in the defined MATLABPATH variable after the startup; it was clean beginning with

C:\ML_R2019\toolbox\matlab\capabilities
C:\ML_R2019\toolbox\matlab\datafun
C:\ML_R2019\toolbox\matlab\datatypes
C:\ML_R2019\toolbox\matlab\elfun
C:\ML_R2019\toolbox\matlab\elmat
...

since had to reinstall after the IT folks broke the install when they did their magic.

Initially the startup would hang on that broken network drive link; TMW Technical Support walked me thru deleting some magic file that gets created on first startup that fixed that, but I couldn't remember what the file was called nor where it was located...

I have progressed from "days of yore" that I do no longer edit path manually, yes -- I used the GUI interface this time and I suppose it did the behind-the-scenes update to the previous state restoration stuff that made the symptoms disappear. It did take at least two restarts after and maybe three, though...I was greatly surprised when the last time the warnings didn't appear, though pleased! :)

Maybe this will help somebody going forward to just have hope and try and get by a similar problem sometime in the future so I'll Accept your Answer and leave here...anyway, I now have the system functioning cleanly which is nice...

I'll see if IT can explain to me the redirect stuff so I can figure out a short path. I use a lot of command line tools as well and the command line "CD" won't do anything with the network path to be able to move back and forth between the local drive and network/shared one which is a pain, though..

[dpb]

"The puzzling thing is that the Z: reference was not in the defined MATLABPATH variable after the startup; it was clean beginning with ..."

Just (FINALLY!) dawned on me -- it was in the MATLABPATH stored away; since the paths weren't valid MATLAB just didn't append them to the final variable. I didn't think to go edit/look at pathdef.m 'cuz I was thinking I was seeing the image. DOH! <Head slap!>