'hold on' not working for Multi-position subplot in matlab - matlab

Question

I am animating some subplots in MATLAB (R2015a). However, when I attempted to position a subplot to take up multiple positions the hold on command no longer works.
Here is a simplified form of my problem:
clear
N = 20;
Analysis(:,1) = linspace(1,N,N);
Analysis(:,2:5) = randi([1, 20],20,4);
for n = 1:N;
subplot(2,2,[1,2]);
title('Particle counts at step number');
plot(Analysis(n,1), Analysis(n,2), '.', 'Markersize', 8, 'color', 'red'), hold on;
plot(Analysis(n,1), Analysis(n,3), '.', 'Markersize', 8, 'color', '[0,0.5,0]');
legend({'Methane','Oxygen'},'FontSize',8,'FontWeight','bold', 'Location', 'northeastoutside');
xlim([0,N]);
ylim([0, 20]);
subplot(2,2,[3,4]);
title('Temperature(k) and Pressure');
plot(Analysis(n,1), Analysis(n,4), '.', 'Markersize', 8, 'color', 'red'), hold on;
plot(Analysis(n,1), Analysis(n,5), '.', 'Markersize', 8, 'color', 'blue');
legend({'Temperature','Pressure'},'FontSize',8,'FontWeight','bold', 'Location', 'northeastoutside');
xlim([0,N]);
ylim([0, 20]);
pause(0.1);
drawnow;
end
The hold on command appears to work again when i remove the legend or change the position of the subplot to be singular but i need it to work with both.

Answer 1

As I said above, this does appear to be a bug. One possible workaround is to modify the XData and YData properties of your line objects:
For example:
N = 20;
Analysis(:,1) = linspace(1,N,N);
Analysis(:,2:5) = randi([1, 20],20,4);
subplot(2,2,[1,2]);
title('Particle counts at step number');
hold on;
ph(1) = plot(Analysis(1,1), Analysis(1,2), '.', 'Markersize', 8, 'color', 'red');
ph(2) = plot(Analysis(1,1), Analysis(1,3), '.', 'Markersize', 8, 'color', '[0,0.5,0]');
hold off;
legend({'Methane','Oxygen'},'FontSize',8,'FontWeight','bold', 'Location', 'northeastoutside');
xlim([0, N]);
ylim([0, 20]);
subplot(2,2,[3,4]);
title('Temperature(k) and Pressure');
hold on;
ph(3) = plot(Analysis(1,1), Analysis(1,4), '.', 'Markersize', 8, 'color', 'red');
ph(4) = plot(Analysis(1,1), Analysis(1,5), '.', 'Markersize', 8, 'color', 'blue');
hold off;
legend({'Temperature','Pressure'},'FontSize',8,'FontWeight','bold', 'Location', 'northeastoutside');
xlim([0 ,N]);
ylim([0, 20]);
for n = 2:N;
k = 2;
for ii = 1:4
ph(ii).XData = Analysis(1:n, 1);
ph(ii).YData = Analysis(1:n, k);
k = k + 1;
end
pause(0.1);
drawnow;
end
I believe this gives you what you're looking for. Not the prettiest but it's functional.