LibreOffice won't start

[ian_mcquay]

Non of my LibreOffice 3.3.3 applications will start. When I launch Calc or
Writer I get LibreOffice Document Recovery dialog box with no items in the
list to be recovered. It says "Due to an unexpected error, LibreOffice
crashed. All the files you were working on will now be saved. The next time
LibreOffice is launche, your files will be recovered automatically."

In Task Manager no LibreOffice application are running. Three LibreOffice
processes are running. Soffic.bin, soffice.exe and calc.exe.

When I click "Okay" on the dialog (the only option) no Calc window starts
but the three processes are still running.

If I try and start Calc again nothing visible happens. It duplicates the
processes in Task Manager.
If I kill off the processors and start again. I get the LibreOffice Document
Recovery dilog again.

Most frustrating.

My system is Win 7 64 bit.

I re installed LibreOffice 3.3.3 yesterday after some similar problems. It
worked then yesterday.

Ian

[Sigrid_Carrera]

Hello Ian,

Non of my LibreOffice 3.3.3 applications will start. When I launch Calc or
Writer I get LibreOffice Document Recovery dialog box with no items in the
list to be recovered. It says "Due to an unexpected error, LibreOffice
crashed. All the files you were working on will now be saved. The next time
LibreOffice is launche, your files will be recovered automatically."

In Task Manager no LibreOffice application are running. Three LibreOffice
processes are running. Soffic.bin, soffice.exe and calc.exe.

While in the Task Manager, just delete soffice.bin, this should also automatically delete the two other processes.

When I click "Okay" on the dialog (the only option) no Calc window starts
but the three processes are still running.

If you see the recovery assistant again, instead of saying "yes, recover my files" just click on "cancel" and LibO should start anew with a new document or at least with the startcenter open.

If I try and start Calc again nothing visible happens. It duplicates the
processes in Task Manager.
If I kill off the processors and start again. I get the LibreOffice Document
Recovery dilog again.

I can see that this is frustrating - please try the above mentioned methods and report back if it has helped you.

Sigrid

[Jack11]

Sigrid Carrera wrote:

If you see the recovery assistant again, instead of saying "yes, recover my files" just click on "cancel" and LibO should start anew with a new document or at least with the startcenter open.

If I try and start Calc again nothing visible happens. It duplicates the
processes in Task Manager.
If I kill off the processors and start again. I get the LibreOffice Document
Recovery dilog again.

I can see that this is frustrating - please try the above mentioned methods and report back if it has helped you.

You could also try to bypass the recovery process. In a command
interface (Start -> Run -> cmd), try the following:
soffice -norestore

It might be necessary navigate to the directory where soffice resides
(if there is no environment set) before you try the above command, but
I'm really not sure. I haven't personally tried it, but from what I
read it should skip the recovery process, which seems to be giving you
some trouble.

Regards
Stephan

[Jack11]

Stephan Zietsman wrote:

You could also try to bypass the recovery process.  In a command
interface (Start -> Run -> cmd), try the following:
soffice -norestore

Sorry, in Win7 it's not "Start" -> "Run" -> "cmd", but rather just
"Start" -> "cmd" (click "Start" and then you just type "cmd" and press
ENTER)

Regards
Stephan

[ian_mcquay]

Sigrid said: While in the Task Manager, just delete soffice.bin, this should
also automatically delete the two other processes.

Thanks that works.

Sigrid said: If you see the recovery assistant again, instead of saying
"yes, recover my files" just click on "cancel" and LibO should start anew
with a new document or at least with the startcenter open.

There is no Cancel button just OK. The close [X] in the top corner does not
work either.

Sigrid said: I can see that this is frustrating - please try the above
mentioned methods and report back if it has helped you.

Not so far. Sorry for the delay for got to watch this email for responses.
I checked the MD5 on my download an that is fine.
I have tried repair but that did not change anything.
I did a new install over the top and it started calc once but not again.
I did an uninstall (twice) and re-install. One allowed me to start calc then
writer but then it was back to recovery. The other time it was straight to
recovery.

I am downloading 3.4.0

Ian

[ian_mcquay]

Stephan: You could also try to bypass the recovery process. In a command
interface (Start -> Run -> cmd), try the following:
soffice -norestore

Stephan: It might be necessary navigate to the directory where soffice
resides
(if there is no environment set) before you try the above command, but
I'm really not sure. I haven't personally tried it, but from what I
read it should skip the recovery process, which seems to be giving you
some trouble.

That works. Thanks.
Once I started writer that way the other shortcuts (calc etc) worked too.
Once I shut writer the normal shortcuts went back to recovery.

I think there must be a recovery trigger file or registry setting that is
causing the restore to trigger. Any thoughts on that?

Ian

[ian_mcquay]

Can't believe it.

Now the same commandline will not start LibreOffice. I get the splash screen
but no program window. I also get nothing in the Task Manager Processes.

Ian

[Tom_Davies]

Hi
Is that still LO 3.3.3 on 64 bit Win7 ?

Can you re-name your current user-profile to get it all back to "factory
defaults"?
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/UserProfile
For Win7 i think the pathname is
\Users\<user name>\AppData\Roaming\libreoffice\3\user
I think i would rename the whole folder at the 3 point changing
\Users\<user name>\AppData\Roaming\libreoffice\3
to
\Users\<user name>\AppData\Roaming\libreoffice\2011-06-28
The reverse date as a folder name means you can keep track of what the back-ups
mean. If renaming the profile works then you can copy chunks of your old
profile back into the newer one. The advantage with renaming is that you keep
everything in the galleries and temp folders. Also it allows you to compare and
contrast to pinpoint where the problem happened if you have time at some future
date.

Regards from
Tom

[Tom_Davies]

Hi
If you still have the downloads for 3.3.3 and 3.4.0 then it might be interesting
to install both alongside each other so that if 1 is not quite doing what you
want then you have easy access to the other
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Installing_in_parallel
Regards from
Tom

[ian_mcquay]

Tom said: Can you re-name your current user-profile to get it all back to
"factory
defaults"?

Woo Hoo. Thanks Tom! That seems to have done the trick. I have opened
several LO apps through the day and no problems.

RE What version.

I was having the same problems on 3.3.3 and 3.4.0. It is fine now in 3.4.0
with the user-profile changed. 3.3.3 is still uninstalled.

So it was something in the user profile that caused the problems.

There is a .tmp file in the old *3\user* directory. I moved it to the new
directory but id did not affect the starting.

Thanks one and all for the help.

Ian

[Jack11]

ian_mcquay wrote:

So it was something in the user profile that caused the problems.

There is a .tmp file in the old *3\user* directory. I moved it to the new
directory but id did not affect the starting.

If you feel like it, you could copy some of the files/folders in the
old profile to the new profile. After copying some files, test to see
if the problem is back. If it seems stable (not crashing again) then
you can go on to copy the next few files/folders. That may help to
track down which files were causing the problem. Narrowing it down
like that, you could probably get most of your old settings back.
Almost like cutting out the bad part of an apple, without throwing the
whole apple away.

But if you don't mind losing your previous settings (and just
configuring LibO again), then I guess you don't need to go through the
effort.

Regards
Stephan

[Tom_Davies]

Hi
Congrats on fixing that! It can be great to start afresh

I think someone has suggested copy a couple of folders at a time from the old
profile back into the new one until it breaks again. Then just delete those
folders to force new ones to be created. Eventually you pin-point where the
trouble was and get all your old stuff back, except whatever was causing
trouble. It's a good plan if you have time and feel the need but as the person
stated there is no real need to do that except curiosity, or if it happens
again.

The main thing is that you fixed it :)) Congrats
Regards from
Tom