figure won't come up after using plot

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Craig
Craig on 15 May 2011
Commented: Moch Yasin on 18 Nov 2023
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.
  5 Comments
Joao Melo
Joao Melo on 7 Jul 2016
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
Frederika Sefaj on 13 Apr 2020
just write figure(1), or howerver your figure was called

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Accepted Answer

Craig
Craig on 21 May 2011
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.
  2 Comments
Carmel Auerbach
Carmel Auerbach on 31 Jul 2021
So how is this solved? Im also accessing my computer remotely and cant see the content of the figures
Moch Yasin
Moch Yasin on 18 Nov 2023
This work for me too. thank you very much.

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More Answers (8)

Joao Melo
Joao Melo on 7 Jul 2016
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
  7 Comments
michelle
michelle on 8 May 2023
This worked for me, as well! Thank you!

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Raady
Raady on 6 Jan 2016
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;
  1 Comment
HABILA
HABILA on 23 Feb 2018
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 !

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Arturo Moncada-Torres
Arturo Moncada-Torres on 16 May 2011
Have you tried opening a figure "by hand"?
noFigure = 1;
figure(noFigure);
x = 1:10;
y = 3*x;
plot(x,y);
Hope it helps ;-)!
  4 Comments
Arturo Moncada-Torres
Arturo Moncada-Torres on 16 May 2011
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
Craig on 16 May 2011
I did try figure(h) and that just gave me an error. It says it must be an integer and h = 174.0028.

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Sean de Wolski
Sean de Wolski on 16 May 2011
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.
  2 Comments
Craig
Craig on 16 May 2011
I am running MATLAB on a PC. I tried the command you suggested and it didn't bring anything up.
Sean de Wolski
Sean de Wolski on 16 May 2011
Call Tech Support and/or reinstall...

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Paulo Silva
Paulo Silva on 16 May 2011
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.

Arturo Moncada-Torres
Arturo Moncada-Torres on 16 May 2011
You could try:
x = 1:1 0;
y = 3*x;
gcf;
plot(x,y);
Give it a try ;-) !

Mike Majer
Mike Majer on 29 Aug 2014
Thanks Arturo Moncada-Torres. I think the gcf line got it for me. What is gcf?

Shubham Agrawal
Shubham Agrawal on 24 Feb 2019
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)
  1 Comment
Walter Roberson
Walter Roberson on 13 Apr 2020
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.

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