MATLAB system does not run applications

I am trying to interact with SUMO via MATLAB according to script here.

At line 43, the MATLAB command is

system(['sumo-gui -c ' '"' scenarioPath '"' ' --remote-port 8873 --start&']);

Since I am using Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS, I fixed scenarioPath. Now, this line is equal to

system('sumo-gui -c "/path/to/SUMO/docs/tutorial/traci_tls/data/cross.sumocfg" --remote-port 8873 --start&');

When I run it nothing does happen (ans=0) while when I test the command in bash command line the sumo-gui application starts.

I believe the problem is even further. when I try the other applications:

 system('firefox &')
 system('nautilus &')
 system('totem &')

nothing does happen. While they all run under Linux command line. when I run them without semicolon ; then I receive ans=0. without any message.

If I remove & at the end of them, I receive the following messages. What am I doing wrong?

system('firefox')

/usr/lib/firefox/firefox: /usr/local/MATLAB/R2016a/sys/os/glnxa64/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.21' not found (required by /usr/lib/firefox/firefox)

ans =

     1

system('nautilus')

nautilus: /usr/local/MATLAB/R2016a/sys/os/glnxa64/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.20' not found (required by /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libexempi.so.3)
nautilus: /usr/local/MATLAB/R2016a/sys/os/glnxa64/libstdc++.so.6: version `CXXABI_1.3.8' not found (required by /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libmirclient.so.9)
nautilus: /usr/local/MATLAB/R2016a/sys/os/glnxa64/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.18' not found (required by /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libmirclient.so.9)
nautilus: /usr/local/MATLAB/R2016a/sys/os/glnxa64/libstdc++.so.6: version `CXXABI_1.3.9' not found (required by /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libmirclient.so.9)
nautilus: /usr/local/MATLAB/R2016a/sys/os/glnxa64/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.21' not found (required by /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libmirclient.so.9)
nautilus: /usr/local/MATLAB/R2016a/sys/os/glnxa64/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.19' not found (required by /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libmirclient.so.9)
nautilus: /usr/local/MATLAB/R2016a/sys/os/glnxa64/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.20' not found (required by /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libmircommon.so.5)
nautilus: /usr/local/MATLAB/R2016a/sys/os/glnxa64/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.18' not found (required by /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libmircommon.so.5)
nautilus: /usr/local/MATLAB/R2016a/sys/os/glnxa64/libstdc++.so.6: version `CXXABI_1.3.9' not found (required by /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libmircommon.so.5)
nautilus: /usr/local/MATLAB/R2016a/sys/os/glnxa64/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.21' not found (required by /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libmircommon.so.5)
nautilus: /usr/local/MATLAB/R2016a/sys/os/glnxa64/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.19' not found (required by /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libmircommon.so.5)
nautilus: /usr/local/MATLAB/R2016a/sys/os/glnxa64/libstdc++.so.6: version `CXXABI_1.3.9' not found (required by /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libmirprotobuf.so.3)
nautilus: /usr/local/MATLAB/R2016a/sys/os/glnxa64/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.21' not found (required by /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libmirprotobuf.so.3)
nautilus: /usr/local/MATLAB/R2016a/sys/os/glnxa64/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.21' not found (required by /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libboost_system.so.1.58.0)
nautilus: /usr/local/MATLAB/R2016a/sys/os/glnxa64/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.21' not found (required by /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libprotobuf-lite.so.9)
nautilus: /usr/local/MATLAB/R2016a/sys/os/glnxa64/libstdc++.so.6: version `CXXABI_1.3.8' not found (required by /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libicui18n.so.55)
nautilus: /usr/local/MATLAB/R2016a/sys/os/glnxa64/libstdc++.so.6: version `CXXABI_1.3.8' not found (required by /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libicuuc.so.55)
nautilus: /usr/local/MATLAB/R2016a/sys/os/glnxa64/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.20' not found (required by /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libboost_filesystem.so.1.58.0)
nautilus: /usr/local/MATLAB/R2016a/sys/os/glnxa64/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.21' not found (required by /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libboost_filesystem.so.1.58.0)

ans =

     1

system('sumo-gui')

sumo-gui: /usr/local/MATLAB/R2016a/sys/os/glnxa64/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.20' not found (required by sumo-gui)
sumo-gui: /usr/local/MATLAB/R2016a/sys/os/glnxa64/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.21' not found (required by sumo-gui)
sumo-gui: /usr/local/MATLAB/R2016a/bin/glnxa64/libtiff.so.5: no version information available (required by /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libFOX-1.6.so.0)
sumo-gui: /usr/local/MATLAB/R2016a/sys/os/glnxa64/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.21' not found (required by /usr/lib/libgdal.so.1)
sumo-gui: /usr/local/MATLAB/R2016a/sys/os/glnxa64/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.20' not found (required by /usr/lib/libgdal.so.1)
sumo-gui: /usr/local/MATLAB/R2016a/bin/glnxa64/libtiff.so.5: no version information available (required by /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpoppler.so.58)
sumo-gui: /usr/local/MATLAB/R2016a/sys/os/glnxa64/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.20' not found (required by /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpoppler.so.58)
sumo-gui: /usr/local/MATLAB/R2016a/sys/os/glnxa64/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.21' not found (required by /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgeos_c.so.1)
sumo-gui: /usr/local/MATLAB/R2016a/sys/os/glnxa64/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.20' not found (required by /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libkmlbase.so.1)
sumo-gui: /usr/local/MATLAB/R2016a/sys/os/glnxa64/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.21' not found (required by /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libkmlbase.so.1)
sumo-gui: /usr/local/MATLAB/R2016a/sys/os/glnxa64/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.20' not found (required by /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libkmldom.so.1)
sumo-gui: /usr/local/MATLAB/R2016a/sys/os/glnxa64/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.21' not found (required by /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libkmldom.so.1)
sumo-gui: /usr/local/MATLAB/R2016a/sys/os/glnxa64/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.20' not found (required by /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libkmlengine.so.1)
sumo-gui: /usr/local/MATLAB/R2016a/sys/os/glnxa64/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.21' not found (required by /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libkmlengine.so.1)
sumo-gui: /usr/local/MATLAB/R2016a/bin/glnxa64/libcrypto.so.1.0.0: no version information available (required by /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpq.so.5)
sumo-gui: /usr/local/MATLAB/R2016a/bin/glnxa64/libssl.so.1.0.0: no version information available (required by /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpq.so.5)
sumo-gui: /usr/local/MATLAB/R2016a/sys/os/glnxa64/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.20' not found (required by /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libdapclient.so.6)
sumo-gui: /usr/local/MATLAB/R2016a/sys/os/glnxa64/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.21' not found (required by /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libdapclient.so.6)
sumo-gui: /usr/local/MATLAB/R2016a/sys/os/glnxa64/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.20' not found (required by /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libdap.so.17)
sumo-gui: /usr/local/MATLAB/R2016a/sys/os/glnxa64/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.21' not found (required by /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libdap.so.17)
sumo-gui: /usr/local/MATLAB/R2016a/sys/os/glnxa64/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.20' not found (required by /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgeos-3.5.0.so)
sumo-gui: /usr/local/MATLAB/R2016a/sys/os/glnxa64/libstdc++.so.6: version `GLIBCXX_3.4.21' not found (required by /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgeos-3.5.0.so)
sumo-gui: /usr/local/MATLAB/R2016a/sys/os/glnxa64/libstdc++.so.6: version `CXXABI_1.3.8' not found (required by /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libicuuc.so.55)

ans =

     1

Using

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/lib

also does not help.

Matlab is messing with the LD_LIBRARY_PATH when you use the standard matlab script located in the bin dir of the matlab installation. Try starting bin/<arch>/MATLAB (in my case bin/glnxa64/MATLAB) directly.