error using matlabpool in 2013a?

Hi, I'm having trouble opening a local (default) matlabpool in 2013a. I've successfully run parallel jobs on this computer in the past, but once before I had an issue related to my antivirus software blocking local sockets. I'm wondering if the fix my IT support used in the past has reverted due to an update and is causing this problem again? (its a long process for me to get IT support, so I want to do as much troubleshooting as I can before I put a ticket in)

This time I'm getting the following error output. Also, when I validate the local cluster, it fails at "Pool job test" with the description that "The job errored or did not reach state finished."

>>

matlabpool open local 11
Starting matlabpool using the 'local' profile ... stopped.

Error using matlabpool (line 144)
Failed to open matlabpool. (For information in addition to the causing
error, validate the profile 'local' in the Cluster Profile Manager.)

Caused by:
    Error using
    parallel.internal.pool.InteractiveClient>iThrowIfBadParallelJobStatus
    (line 780)
    The interactive communicating job errored with the following message:
    The remote socket abruptly stopped communicating with the local socket.

[Edric Ellis]

I'm afraid it does rather look like a socket connection problem.

[Thomas]

Thanks for the quick reply. Any idea how to fix it? Is it something I can fix within Matlab, or do I need to get IT to mess around with my firewall software, or some other aspect of my computing environment?

[Edric Ellis]

I don't think there's much you can do from within MATLAB to address this. You might try contacting MathWorks installation support.