Why do I receive an error "Unable to use [license folder]" when I try to launch MATLAB?

Why do I get the following error message when trying to launch MATLAB?

Unable to use [license folder]

For help, contact MathWorks Support.

Answer 1

[MathWorks Support Team]

This error will occur when there are issues when attempting to write license information to your computer. Check the following to resolve the issue:

1. Make sure the user running MATLAB has read/write permissions to the location listed in the error message
2. Make sure there is enough space on the storage device to write the license information and that there is not an IT policy imposing too restrictive of a limit. Less than 1 MB is needed, but if your computer is very low on storage, it may not be able to write the file.
3. Make sure there is not another outside factor (e.g. anti-virus) limiting MATLAB and MathWorks Service Host from writing the license information to the folder.

If you do not know where the license information is stored on your computer, you can see where it is stored based on your operating system below.

Windows

C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\MathWorks\licensing\licenses\

MacOS

~/Library/Application Support/MathWorks/licensing/licenses/

Linux

/home/$USER/.MathWorks/licensing/licenses/