When I run guide in matlab it opens a blank all gray window. Whats going on?

Question

When I run guide in Matlab, the window that opens is completely grayed out with a title "GUIDE quick start". I am running R2012b in Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS. Has anyone else run into this problem?

UPDATE 1

So I just discovered that if I press enter on that first blank grey window then it opens the Layout Editor window and everything seems to be fine. So I am guessing that on that first screen there is just an OK button (which I cannot see) so when I press enter it is like clicking on the OK button.

UPDATE 2

I built a quick GUI and there are issues. I can create axes and buttons and sliders on the layout tool. However, when I run the GUI tool it only displays the axes, the buttons, sliders are not there.

Answer 1

I believe some things in MATLAB are not yet compatible with Java 7, so stick with Java 6 for the moment.

In any case, you can have both versions installed at the same time, just instruct MATLAB to use the correct version by setting the $MATLAB_JAVA environment variable.

You can then verify which version is being used by issuing the command:

>> version -java

Answer 2

I had a similar problem in Ubuntu, got solved by skipping Unity and starting the session with "classic gnome" instead.