Why do I receive a segmentation violation when running a compiled application if my HOME environment variable is unset?

I have a minimal environment with only LD_LIBRARY_PATH set up. I receive the following error when I launch MATLAB without the HOME environment variable set, and run my compiled application, helloworld, from a remote machine.

The following procedure will reproduce the error:

% unsetenv HOME 

% ./helloworld

 Warning: Unable to open display , MATLAB is starting without a display. 

   You will not be able to display graphics on the screen. 

 Warning: No window system found.  Java option 'MWT' ignored. 

 Warning: Unable to load Java Runtime Environment: libjvm.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory. 

 Warning: Disabling Java support. 

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 

        Segmentation violation detected at Wed Apr 20 10:26:19 2005 

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 

 Configuration: 

   MATLAB Version:   7.0.4.352 (R14) Service Pack 2 

   MATLAB License:   unknown 

   Operating System: Linux 2.4.18 #14 SMP Mon Feb 10 15:36:47 EST 2003 i686 

   Window System:    No active display 

   Current Visual:   None 

   Processor ID:     x86 Family 6 Model 6 Stepping 2, AuthenticAMD 

   Virtual Machine:  Java is not enabled 

   Default Charset:  US-ASCII 

 Register State: 

   eax = 00000000   ebx = 41662020 

   ecx = ffffffff   edx = 00000006 

   esi = 411d5280   edi = 00000000 

   ebp = bfffe348   esp = bfffe330 

   eip = 41659bb4   flg = 00010246 

 Stack Trace: 

   [0] libmwmpath.so:mpCombinePathName~(0x411d5280, 0, 0x411b3740 "toolbox_cache-7.0.4-glnx86.xml", 0) + 32 bytes 

   [1] libmwservices.so:svGetToolboxCacheFile~(0x40254e48, 0, 0, 0xbffff4b0) + 96 bytes 

   [2] libmwbridge.so:0x416b4c0d(0x410ce51c, 0x08126f10, 0xbffff5e8, 0x410c4b60) 

   [3] libmwbridge.so:_Z32mnRunPathDependentInitializationv~(0x41106d58, 0x4110fed8, 0xbffff574, 0xbffff65d) + 37 bytes 

 ...

Answer 1

[MathWorks Support Team]

This bug has been fixed in Release 2006a (R2006a). For previous product releases, read below for any possible workarounds:

There is a bug in MATLAB Compiler 4.2 (R14SP2) in the way that MATLAB crashes when running a compiled application if the user's HOME environment variable is unset. This issue is being considered for a future release.

To work around this issue, set the HOME environment variable before running your compiled application.