"No help found" for built-in functions or user defined functions in R2014a

The help command isn't working for me in R2014a, for my own functions or for built-in Matlab functions. For example:

>> which time_mean

/home/jwalker/dynamics/calc/utilities/time_mean.m

>> help time_mean

No help found for time_mean.m.

However, when I type the exact same thing into an older version of Matlab on another computer (R2013b), it works perfectly and I get all the help info that is commented in the beginning of the function. The help command isn't working for built-in Matlab functions either, for example:

>> which sum

built-in (/opt/matlab/toolbox/matlab/datafun/@uint8/sum) % uint8 method

>> help sum

No help found for sum.m.

Any ideas what is causing this and how to fix it? It is very inconvenient to have to open each function in the editor in order to see the list of input arguments and other info that would normally be provided by the help command. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

Answer 1

[Sean de Wolski]

You need to reset the path:

restoredefaultpath
rehash toolboxcache

This should take care of it.

[John D'Errico]

While I think (and hope) this may solve the problem, if MATLAB can see the code on the search path, I wonder if this may be an early symptom of a corrupt disk or a corrupt MATLAB installation.

If Sean's solution is insufficient, I would next do some checking to see if your hard drive has problems using one of the many utilities designed to do that.

If not that, then I'd try a reinstall of MATLAB, since help does work in the latest releases.

[Sean de Wolski]

This was a common problem that affected a lot of users right after 14a shipped. It involves MATLAB trying to preserve path settings, though some of its internal ones changed (probably a bug).

http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/121218-no-help-found-for-myfunc-m

I wouldn't worry about the installation.

Answer 2

[Jennifer]

Yes, that did the trick! Everything seems to be working fine now. Thanks so much for the help!