figure won't come up after using plot

I am fairly new to MATLAB. In the past I've been able to plot with no trouble. A figure would automatically come up after I used "plot". Now when I plot, no figure appears. Here's a simple example:

>> x = 1:10;
>> y = 3*x;
>> plot(x,y)
>>

Nothing comes up after this - no error message, no figure. I'm hoping this involves something simple like changing a setting. It worked fine just a week or two ago.

I tried using the "plottools" command, but that just brings up a blank figure window. It also gives me the following message in the command window:

>> plottools
Warning: OpenGL appears to be installed incorrectly. 
> In opengl at 150
  In getplottool>createOrGetSelectionManager at 71
  In getplottool at 58
  In plottools at 148
>>

I should also mention that I have been remote accessing my office computer for the last week and I can't recall if this problem started before or after. Though I wouldn't think that would be the cause of the problem. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Andrew Newell]

This sounds like a problem for MATLAB Support.

[Walter Roberson]

Some forms of remote access can cause this problem. How are you accessing?

[Craig]

Walter, I am remote accessing my office computer through WebVPN. I am also using a laptop with a much smaller screen. I wish I could go to my office to see if I am having the problem there, but I am away from my office for the next week or so. However, I have had no other problems while remote accessing MATLAB.

[Joao Melo]

Hello, could you solve this problem? I am having the same issue and I also started remotelly acessing my computer. How did you solve this? Thank you

[Frederika Sefaj]

just write figure(1), or howerver your figure was called

Answer 1

[Craig]

OK, I think I figured this out. When I start up MATLAB, I get this message and I'm guessing this has to due with the fact that I am remote accessing my office computer:

    MATLAB only supports a screen depth of 16 or higher (Truecolor.)
    MATLAB is running in headless mode.  Figure windows will not be displayed.

[Carmel Auerbach]

So how is this solved? Im also accessing my computer remotely and cant see the content of the figures

[Moch Yasin]

This work for me too. thank you very much.

Answer 2

[Joao Melo]

Ok, figured it out:

In one of the menus in the task bar there is one called plots (Home Plots Apps).

One the far rigth side, there are two options: Reuse figure or new figure.

1) Make sure it is in new figure 2) Restart Matlab 3) Your plot should open

[John Ondov]

Joao's solution worked for me! I shall be making use of the drawnow command also as posted by Raady. Thank you both!

[Akila Wijeratne]

Thank you, it worked!

[Akshay Raju]

Awesome! Worked for me

[Maymarie van den Heever]

Same here, thx!

[Jordan Willis]

Shout out to Joao. I almost punched a hole through my monitor trying to figure this out.

[Arunima Sarkar]

Thank you JOAO..

[michelle]

This worked for me, as well! Thank you!

[Shivam]

Worked for me as well just before i needed to submit my plot, you are a legend.

Thanks a lot

[Mariami]

Yay Worked!

I was getting ready to start crying :D

[Mikolaj]

Thank you so much

[Vesa]

This saved my day, thank you!

Answer 3

[Raady]

this answer helps when body checking this thread again.

if you are using the figure to plot in a loop, you have to use command as below , then you can see the figure.

drawnow;

[HABILA]

I also had the issue on running my old code ploting figures on loop using hold on, earlier it was working fine in MATLAB2008 and MATLAB2011 but it wasn't showing plot while running the same code in MATLAB2015. Now adding the command drawline its working fine. don't know the exact reason why... still thank you !

Answer 4

[Arturo Moncada-Torres]

Have you tried opening a figure "by hand"?

noFigure = 1;
figure(noFigure);
x = 1:10;
y = 3*x;
plot(x,y);

Hope it helps ;-)!

[Craig]

I tried this and no figure came up. I also tried

>> x = 1:10;

>> y = 3*x;

>> h = plot(x,y);

>> h

h = 174.0028

>>

Not sure what this means.

[Sean de Wolski]

h is the handle to your figure.

What happens if you type:

figure(h)

?

[Arturo Moncada-Torres]

This is a handler. A handler is a numerical identifier that makes reference to an object. With it, you can access and manipulate the object's properties. However, I think this is not what we are looking for.

[Craig]

I did try figure(h) and that just gave me an error. It says it must be an integer and h = 174.0028.

Answer 5

[Sean de Wolski]

Are you on Macintosh?

I have problems with MATLAB figures hiding behind things, a major shortcoming of MacOSX in general.

I wrote a script fgcf.m that is literally

figure(gcf)

So in the event that I plot something and it appears on a hidden figure that figure is surfaced.

[Craig]

I am running MATLAB on a PC. I tried the command you suggested and it didn't bring anything up.

[Sean de Wolski]

Call Tech Support and/or reinstall...

[Terry]

This worked for me on MacOSX

No idea what this hidden figure thing is but dang it is annoying

Answer 6

[Paulo Silva]

I had that problem in MATLAB 2008b for awhile, no clue what caused it and what fixed it, just put figure before the plot command.

Answer 7

[Arturo Moncada-Torres]

You could try:

    x = 1:1  0;
    y = 3*x;
    gcf;
    plot(x,y);

Give it a try ;-) !

[Mike Majer]

Thanks Arturo Moncada-Torres. I think the gcf line got it for me. What is gcf?

[Rick Pooler]

gcf - get current figure

Answer 8

[Shubham Agrawal]

First of all there is no loop in your matlab script. You can use 'For' loop in this particular program.

Secondary thing is that you are not making any matrix which can store value of inputs and outputs.

I am pasting solution for your query. This thing is working.

k=0;
Y=[ ];
X=[ ];
for x=0:10
y=3*x;
k=k+1;
X(k,1)=x;
Y(k,1)=y;
end
plot(X,Y)

[Walter Roberson]

The user had

y = 3*x;

y will be a matrix that stores the appropriate values corresponding to the vector of x values.

There is no need at all to use a loop for this purpose; vectorization is perfectly fine.

The problem had nothing at all to do with this. The user was using remote access software that was interfering with being able to get the proper plots.

Answer 9

[Supriya]

I'm relatively new to MATLAB. Previously, I had no issues with plotting — a figure window would automatically open whenever I used the plot command. However, now when I try to plot something, no figure window shows up.Please resolve it.

[DGM]

If I had to guess, I'd guess that you had a figure window under your main window and you're just not seeing it. If I didn't have to guess, I wouldn't be guessing.

[Vinod]

Are you using MATLAB on yoru desktop or MATLAB Online? If you see this behavior in MATLAB Online, try the MATLAB Answer here.

[Stephen]

Im having the same issue in Matlab on fedora, if im in -nodesktop or -nodisplay no plot will show up and that didnt used to be the case.