libreoffice won't open files

users
#1

I've had a strange experience recently - libreoffice won't open files.
That is File/Open doesn't bring up a dialog box. File/New works and so
does using a filename on the command line when starting libreoffice.
Libreoffice previously worked fine.

Does anybody know what this might be? Or how to diagnose it - I've been
unable to find a method to turn on logging from the command-line for
example. It's on opensuse 11.3, amd64, standard repository. I'm running
LXDE. The program claims to be LibreOffice 3.3 330m19(Build:8).

Thanks, Dave

#2

Dave

I've had a strange experience recently - libreoffice won't open files.
That is File/Open doesn't bring up a dialog box. File/New works and so
does using a filename on the command line when starting libreoffice.
Libreoffice previously worked fine.

Does anybody know what this might be? Or how to diagnose it - I've been
unable to find a method to turn on logging from the command-line for
example. It's on opensuse 11.3, amd64, standard repository. I'm running
LXDE. The program claims to be LibreOffice 3.3 330m19(Build:8).

Thanks, Dave

I have never seen this problem on Ubuntu. I wonder if something that was
installed unintentionally broke or garbled something in LO.

You user data is in a hidden folder .libreoffice and specifically in the
subfolder 3. You can copy the data or rename the folder and see if LO
works correctly.

#3

Hello Jay,

Thanks for the reply. I've just tried moving .libreoffice
to .libreoffice.sav (the contents of which are a single directory called
3-suse) and starting libreoffice. The results are unchanged:

- I type libreoffice in a terminal. I see a window with icons and labels
saying Text Document, Spreadsheet etc.

- Nothing apparently happens if I choose File/Open but clicking on a
button results in a new document of the appropriate type.

- Quitting the program may be interesting:
  - It quits normally if I just start it and then File/Exit
  - It quits normally if I start it, create a new document and then
    File/Exit
  - but if I start it and then choose File/Open it subsequently fails
    to quit and CPU goes to 100%. The running process is
     /usr/lib64/libreoffice/program/soffice.bin -splash-pipe=5

I apreciate that something may have broken or scrambled something (other
install or an update perhaps). My problem is working out what and how to
fix it :slight_smile:

strace shows some unedifying stuff. I was hopeful there might be some
more intelligible logging available.

gettimeofday({1312749574, 767978}, NULL) = 0
poll([{fd=8, events=POLLIN}, {fd=7, events=POLLIN}], 2, 0) = 0 (Timeout)
gettimeofday({1312749574, 768045}, NULL) = 0
read(7, 0x6360c4, 4096) = -1 EAGAIN (Resource
temporarily unavailable)
gettimeofday({1312749574, 768105}, NULL) = 0
poll([{fd=8, events=POLLIN}, {fd=7, events=POLLIN}], 2, 0) = 0 (Timeout)
gettimeofday({1312749574, 768162}, NULL) = 0
read(7, 0x6360c4, 4096) = -1 EAGAIN (Resource
temporarily unavailable)
gettimeofday({1312749574, 768222}, NULL) = 0
poll([{fd=8, events=POLLIN}, {fd=7, events=POLLIN}], 2, 0) = 0 (Timeout)
gettimeofday({1312749574, 768280}, NULL) = 0
read(7, 0x6360c4, 4096) = -1 EAGAIN (Resource
temporarily unavailable)
gettimeofday({1312749574, 768339}, NULL) = 0
poll([{fd=8, events=POLLIN}, {fd=7, events=POLLIN}], 2, 0) = 0 (Timeout)
gettimeofday({1312749574, 768571}, NULL) = 0
read(7, 0x6360c4, 4096) = -1 EAGAIN (Resource
temporarily unavailable)
gettimeofday({1312749574, 768636}, NULL) = 0
poll([{fd=8, events=POLLIN}, {fd=7, events=POLLIN}], 2, 0) = 0 (Timeout)
gettimeofday({1312749574, 768734}, NULL) = 0
read(7, 0x6360c4, 4096) = -1 EAGAIN (Resource
temporarily unavailable)
gettimeofday({1312749574, 768799}, NULL) = 0
poll([{fd=8, events=POLLIN}, {fd=7, events=POLLIN}], 2, 0) = 0 (Timeout)
gettimeofday({1312749574, 768857}, NULL) = 0
read(7, 0x6360c4, 4096) = -1 EAGAIN (Resource
temporarily unavailable)
gettimeofday({1312749574, 768918}, NULL) = 0
poll([{fd=8, events=POLLIN}, {fd=7, events=POLLIN}], 2, 0) = 0 (Timeout)
gettimeofday({1312749574, 768975}, NULL) = 0
read(7, 0x6360c4, 4096) = -1 EAGAIN (Resource
temporarily unavailable)
gettimeofday({1312749574, 769048}, NULL) = 0
poll([{fd=8, events=POLLIN}, {fd=7, events=POLLIN}], 2, 0) = 0 (Timeout)
gettimeofday({1312749574, 769105}, NULL) = 0
read(7, 0x6360c4, 4096) = -1 EAGAIN (Resource
temporarily unavailable)
gettimeofday({1312749574, 769165}, NULL) = 0
poll([{fd=8, events=POLLIN}, {fd=7, events=POLLIN}], 2, 0) = 0 (Timeout)
gettimeofday({1312749574, 769223}, NULL) = 0
read(7, 0x6360c4, 4096) = -1 EAGAIN (Resource
temporarily unavailable)
gettimeofday({1312749574, 769283}, NULL) = 0
poll([{fd=8, events=POLLIN}, {fd=7, events=POLLIN}], 2, 0) = 0 (Timeout)
gettimeofday({1312749574, 770097}, NULL) = 0
read(7, 0x6360c4, 4096) = -1 EAGAIN (Resource
temporarily unavailable)
gettimeofday({1312749574, 770165}, NULL) = 0
poll([{fd=8, events=POLLIN}, {fd=7, events=POLLIN}], 2, 0) = 0 (Timeout)
gettimeofday({1312749574, 770223}, NULL) = 0
read(7, 0x6360c4, 4096) = -1 EAGAIN (Resource
temporarily unavailable)
gettimeofday({1312749574, 770284}, NULL) = 0
poll([{fd=8, events=POLLIN}, {fd=7, events=POLLIN}], 2, 0) = 0 (Timeout)
gettimeofday({1312749574, 770342}, NULL) = 0
read(7, 0x6360c4, 4096) = -1 EAGAIN (Resource
temporarily unavailable)
gettimeofday({1312749574, 770402}, NULL) = 0

Thanks, Dave

#4

...
Try: Tools|Options|LibreOffice|General|Open/Save dialogs| and try
with/without 'Use LibreOffie dialogs'. Uncheck uses your system file
manager dialog, checked uses LO's internal dialog.

#5

Hmm, there's no such option :frowning:

I can choose Tools/Options and it opens a window. Within that I can
select LibreOffice -> General to select a page/tab/whatever. But there's
no Use LibreOffie dialogs buttons/checkboxes/etc. If I click on the Help
button on that page and view the topic 'opening;dialogue box settings',
it tells me the same thing you do; that there should be such an option.
But it's not there. There's options for:
- Help
- Document status
- Year (two digits)
- Enable experimental (unstable) features

but there's no
- LibreOffice Help formatting
- Open/Save dialogue boxes

I don't know what that means!

#6

As a follow-up. I just logged out and logged back in with a Gnome
seesion and now there is a 'Use LibreOffice dialogue boxes' checkbox .
It's not checked so I'm going to check it and try with LXDE again.

#7

And yes! Now I have dialog boxes in LXDE as well.

So thanks very much for solving that. I guess there's a bug there
somewhere. If so, how and where should I report it?

Thanks again, Dave

#8

Dave,

> > > Try: Tools|Options|LibreOffice|General|Open/Save dialogs| and try
> > > with/without 'Use LibreOffie dialogs'. Uncheck uses your system file
> > > manager dialog, checked uses LO's internal dialog.
> >
> > Hmm, there's no such option :frowning:
> >
> > I can choose Tools/Options and it opens a window. Within that I can
> > select LibreOffice -> General to select a page/tab/whatever. But there's
> > no Use LibreOffie dialogs buttons/checkboxes/etc. If I click on the Help
> > button on that page and view the topic 'opening;dialogue box settings',
> > it tells me the same thing you do; that there should be such an option.
> > But it's not there. There's options for:
> > - Help
> > - Document status
> > - Year (two digits)
> > - Enable experimental (unstable) features
> >
> > but there's no
> > - LibreOffice Help formatting
> > - Open/Save dialogue boxes
> >
> > I don't know what that means!
>
> As a follow-up. I just logged out and logged back in with a Gnome
> seesion and now there is a 'Use LibreOffice dialogue boxes' checkbox .
> It's not checked so I'm going to check it and try with LXDE again.

And yes! Now I have dialog boxes in LXDE as well.

So thanks very much for solving that. I guess there's a bug there
somewhere. If so, how and where should I report it?

Thanks again, Dave

The link to report bugs is
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/
Once set up an account you can submit your report to the LO. You will
see many projects so just scroll down till you see LO.
Thanks,

#9

Cool! Glad you got it sorted out.

Use link that planas provided to report the bug for LO general. However,
if your version is opensuse specific ("opensuse 11.3, amd64, standard
repository"), then I'd recommend that you report it in your standard
opensuse bug reporting channels as that build is an opensuse build
rather than a standard LO build. Before you do that, you could try
installing the standard LO version and see if it exhibits the same
symptom(s) - I'd test but I don't have opensuse running in a virtual
machine any longer & my test machine with lxde is currently down.

#10

Hi :slight_smile:
The headings you listed are there but there is an additional heading just after
the first one.

- Help
- Open/Save dialogue boxes
- Document status
- Year (two digits)

It might be good to try renaming your LibreOffice config/user-profile to see if
that has been blocking something. On a command-line try

sudo mv /home/username/.libreoffice/3/user
/home/username/.libreoffice/3/2011-08-09

If openSUSE doesn't have a sudo command then try

su
mv /home/username/.libreoffice/3/user /home/username/.libreoffice/3/2011-08-09

Note there is a space between user and the 2nd /home also replace "username"
with the name you logged in with. Tab-complete can help get the spelling right
even in a pathname. When i rename a folder like that i use reverse date order
rather than something like "backup" or something equally vague in order to help
me find the right one reasonably easily.

I sometimes open files by opening the program and then just drag&drop the file i
wanted to open into an appropriate part of the window. If i get a wrong part in
LibreOffice it gives me a nice looking icon on the blank page.

Good luck and regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#11

Hi :slight_smile:
It might be a good plan to post the bug-report in both places. Here is link to
the LO guide on bug-reporting. It's got the link in there somewhere
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/BugReport
If you do post the bug in both places then it helps to give the url of the other
as a 2nd comment or something so that people can easily check on progress in the
other thread.

I agree with NoOp that probably the best place to report it initially is in the
openSUSE space instead of the LO one, especially since you have narrowed it down
to a problem with their tweaked version on their LxDE. It doesn't really matter
where since both projects have quite a few devs.
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#12

Did you not *read* the thread?

<quote>
Thanks for the reply. I've just tried moving .libreoffice
to .libreoffice.sav (the contents of which are a single directory called
3-suse) and starting libreoffice. The results are unchanged:
</quote>
...

#13

Did you not *read* the thread? planas/Jay already provided the link:

<quote>
The link to report bugs is
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/
Once set up an account you can submit your report to the LO. You will
see many projects so just scroll down till you see LO.
</quote>
...