In bug #53724 a user has confirmed my findings.

Now the question beomes: is this a duplicate or a more general issue?

Steps to reproduce:
1. load the attached .mat file bugXXXX.mat

2. plot the data using:

patch ("vertices", [X Y], "faces", faces, "facecolor", [0.5 0.7 0.9], "edgecolor", [0.6 0.6 0.6])

3. click  Zoom in" button

4. Zoom out using scroll wheel until plotted data disappear completely (axes still visible).

5. Then zoom back in

==> Result:
No problems.

But,

6. Repeat step 2

7. Type "axis equal" in command window

8. Repeat steps 3 - 5

Result:
==> After a few zoom-out steps (9 in my case) the plot and axes suddenly disappear completely. Zooming back in they don't reappear.

In addition, after step 2 (w/o "axis equal"), zooming out (with zoom out button active) by clicking in the plot, the plot zooms out but after a few clicks in the plot often zooms back in to full extent.

In other tries, zooming in behaves similarly, the plot zooms out unexpectedly in some cases.