CAT12 fails in MATLAB R2025b due to WebGL/ANGLE OpenGL incompatibility, but works in R2023a

I am running the CAT12 toolbox (2019 version, spm_cat12.m revision ~1417) for T1 MRI segmentation.

In MATLAB R2025b on a machine with NVIDIA GPUs, CAT12 fails during the quality assurance (QA) step with the error:

“One or more output arguments not assigned during call to opengl”

The error originates from cat_vol_qa.m, which internally calls:

QAS.software.opengl = opengl('INFO');

QAS.software.opengldata = opengl('DATA');

As a result, CAT12 does not complete QA and does not write the XML output files, which are required for my downstream processing.

Incedently, the same CAT12 version work correctly on a different machine running MATLAB R2023a on a CPU-only system.

On the failing system (R2025b), rendererinfo reports:

GraphicsRenderer: WebGL

RendererDevice: ANGLE (Direct3D11, NVIDIA GPU)

Attempts to force software OpenGL using MATLAB command window:

opengl('save','software');

opengl('software');

or starting matlab from command line using flags, i.e.

matlab -noopengl

matlab -softwareopengl

do not move MATLAB off the WebGL/ANGLE backend.

Moreso, I cannot simply disable the CAT12 QA step, as the XML files generated during QA are required.

Questions:

1. Is there a supported way in MATLAB R2025b to disable WebGL/ANGLE and force a legacy OpenGL?
2. Are legacy calls such as opengl('INFO') / opengl('DATA') expected to fail under the newer graphics stack? If so, is there a work around?

Any guidance or recommended migration paths for older toolboxes would be appreciated.

[Devesh]

I tried to used some of solutions listed here: https://de.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/2088966-how-to-disable-webgl-and-use-opengl

But it dosen't work for me yet

Answer 1

[Steven Lord]

The Release Notes state, among other things: "Calling the opengl (R2025a) function has no effect. To query the graphics renderer, use the rendererinfo (R2025a) function instead." and "The MATLAB startup options -softwareopengl, -nosoftwareopengl, -softwareopenglmesa, and -noopengl have no effect."

You should probably read the full Release Notes entry for more information.