QUESTION: Libreoffice documents constantly need recovery

Simon_Cropper · February 17, 2011, 4:38am

Hi,

I am regularly getting a dialog box stating that one of the LibreOffice Documents I am working on needs to be recovered.

This happens despite...
1. The document actually saving and libreoffice closing without any errors.
2. Quite regularly -- 5-10 times a day.

I have searched around and only found one error log that has libreoffice mentioned. This is hs_err_pid####.log found in my HOME directory.

I have provided a link to one of the many log below for interest. I note however that the logs do not appear when the dialog box appears, or should I say prior to the dialog appearing. So...

1. Can someone explain what normally triggers this 'recover a file' dialog to appear (system events or file specific events)?
2. Where in the system is the cause of the 'error' stored (e.g. log, event log, etc)?
3. What does the error log linked[1] to signify?

[1] http://www.botanicusaustralia.com.au/Documents/LOJavaErr.log

I am using Ubuntu 10.04 LTR, LibreOffice 3.3.0 [OOO330m19 (Build:6)
tag libreoffice-3.3.0.4, Ubuntu package 1:3.3.0-1lucid1]

iplaw67 · February 17, 2011, 7:52am

Hi Simon,

I am regularly getting a dialog box stating that one of the LibreOffice
Documents I am working on needs to be recovered.

I see you're using JVM 1.6.0_20 (IcedTea), you might want to try
updating to Java 1.6.0_22 to see if that resolves the difficulties.

Alex

Simon_Cropper · February 18, 2011, 5:29am

[snip]

I see you're using JVM 1.6.0_20 (IcedTea), you might want to try
updating to Java 1.6.0_22 to see if that resolves the difficulties.

Alex,

I have switched to Java 1.6.0_22 and that seems to have done the trick.
Note I did not specifically choose this version, it is what LibreOffice 'chose' when installing from the PPA.

When I went to Tools > Options > LibreOffice-Java, both versions were listed only the older one was actually selected. Apart from the obvious version change the older version is using java-6-openjdk whereas the newer version is java-6-sun-1.6.0.22

iplaw67 · February 18, 2011, 9:29am

Hi Simon,

I have switched to Java 1.6.0_22 and that seems to have done the trick.
Note I did not specifically choose this version, it is what LibreOffice
'chose' when installing from the PPA.

My guess is that it effectively just chooses the first one it finds in
the JAVA_HOME variable.

Alex

krackedpress · February 18, 2011, 1:56pm

I read somewhere an article that stated there were issues with Openjdk. Some issues were that it did not work like Sun's Java in some aspects that effect the software that need Java. It stated that until those issues are fixed, you should not use it for several software applications, including LibreOffice. I do not know what the Openjkd is doing for the Java user community, but for me if both are free, I will use Sun's Java for the near future. But, Sun's Java had big problems a few years ago, and the newest one at that time would not install correctly on my Windows machine, so maybe Openjdk will be a good thing in the future, but not now for LibreOffice on my systems.

Of course, I do not like PPA installs and prefer not to use them. So I am a little biased about the subject.

Gordon_Burgess-Park1 · February 18, 2011, 3:27pm

Interestingly I'm using LO 3.3 (direct from LO not via ppa) and the OpenJDK 6 6b20-1.9.5 that comes with Ubuntu 10.04 and seem to have no problems with it...

NoOp · February 18, 2011, 5:14pm

Please file a bug report, and or join one that may have already been
filed. You can file/check here:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/libreoffice

There appears to be one already filed by KAMI on openjdk:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/openjdk-6/+bug/710641
but I can't seem to figure out how to link that to the PPA issues.
Launchpad only allows it to be linked to the upstream:
https://launchpad.net/df-libreoffice/trunk

So, I'd file a new bug in
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/libreoffice and mention
710641. That way a dev can link the two together. Also add your
log/comments to 710641. Also mention that you are using the ppa version
& include system details:

$ lsb_release -a
$ cat /usr/lib/libreoffice/program/versionrc
$ apt-cache policy libreoffice

Villeroy · February 19, 2011, 1:45am

Am 18.02.2011 16:27, Gordon Burgess-Parker wrote:

I read somewhere an article that stated there were issues with Openjdk.

Interestingly I'm using LO 3.3 (direct from LO not via ppa) and the
OpenJDK 6 6b20-1.9.5 that comes with Ubuntu 10.04 and seem to have no
problems with it...

Any database built on Java becomes extremely slow with open jdk. I could not use any medium sized HSQLDB nor H2 database.

Simon_Cropper · February 24, 2011, 3:37am

Hi All,

[bump]

This need to recover files is happening again, so the Java change made some difference but obviously not stopped it happening. In the last hour I have recovered ~6 times and all I have been doing is adding content to pages.

Juan_Carlos1 · July 28, 2011, 11:03pm

I have the same problem with L.O Writer 3.4.1 in Ubuntu 10.10. L.O. uses java
1.6.0_26. Also I downloaded the deb packages from the web page (not from
PPA)

Is there any news about this problem?

Another question, where is located the log file with the error reported by
L.O.?

David_Nelson1 · July 29, 2011, 4:17am

Hi Juan,

I have the same problem with L.O Writer 3.4.1 in Ubuntu 10.10. L.O. uses java
1.6.0_26. Also I downloaded the deb packages from the web page (not from
PPA)

Is there any news about this problem?

It's not actually an erroneous behavior. It depends how you close the
document(s). For example, if you work on a doc, save it, leave it open
(and, therefore, leave LibreOffice open), and then exit Ubuntu
perfectly normally then, the next time you open LibreOffice, you will
be prompted to recover the docs as if some horrible disaster had
happened, even though there has been no data loss or anything.

If you don't want this behavior to happen then, before you exit
Ubuntu, cleanly close your doc(s) and cleanly exit your LibreOffice,
and THEN exit Ubuntu.

The above was just an example of when it happens. It can happen in
other circumstances, too. It's actually considered to be perfectly
normal AFAIK. Microsoft Office 2010, for instance, behaves in pretty
much the same way.

It irritates me as well, but you'd have to file a feature request to
ask for the behavior to be re-examined and possibly re-designed.

HTH.

Another question, where is located the log file with the error reported by
L.O.?

I can't remember off-hand.

Brian_Barker · July 30, 2011, 1:09am

Are you suggesting that if you log out of or shut down Windows when you have some component part of Microsoft Office 2010 open then it will just abort and complain next time it is opened? Are you joking? Even if you have an unsaved document open, Word (or whatever) - being closed by Windows - will challenge you to save or discard your changes. You may have a good reason to choose your operating system and application software, but made-up stories about others is not.

Brian Barker

David_Nelson1 · July 30, 2011, 9:42am

Hi,

Are you suggesting that if you log out of or shut down Windows when you have
some component part of Microsoft Office 2010 open then it will just abort
and complain next time it is opened? Are you joking? Even if you have an
unsaved document open, Word (or whatever) - being closed by Windows - will
challenge you to save or discard your changes. You may have a good reason
to choose your operating system and application software, but made-up
stories about others is not.

It will not *abort*, but the next time Word, for instance, opens you
will definitely be prompted to check whether you want to recover the
last doc(s) you were working on, even if you carefully saved the
doc(s) before ending your last session. Try it and see. Microsoft
Office and LibreOffice function fairly similarly from this viewpoint,
and it does help to prevent data loss when crashes or accidents
happen.

BTW, I am *not* getting into a "Word versus Writer stand-off" here...

Tom_Davies · July 30, 2011, 11:34am

Hi
Both things happen. Windows sometimes makes a bit of a fuss about not shutting
down when asked to. It prefers to find excuses and panicks about open
documents. If you did have an open document then it will often tend to have a
problem and want you to "recover" it even if you dealt with those error pop-ups
neatly during shut-down. Neither thing always happens but one or the other or
both do happen fairly often.

I once shut-down halfway through writing something in a Gnu&Linux, got a brief
warning that i ignored and it quickly timed out and continued with the
shut-down. Then i installed a completely different gnu&linux over the top of my
OS and opened the text-editor to find it reopened the unsaved text-file with
only a few words missing. Sadly it was a very unimportant note and i've not
repeated the experiment because it's too risky to do stuff like that. It
shouldn't work so it was quite a surprise.

Regards from
Tom

planas · July 30, 2011, 11:18pm

Hi,

Hi
Both things happen. Windows sometimes makes a bit of a fuss about not shutting
down when asked to. It prefers to find excuses and panicks about open
documents. If you did have an open document then it will often tend to have a
problem and want you to "recover" it even if you dealt with those error pop-ups
neatly during shut-down. Neither thing always happens but one or the other or
both do happen fairly often.

I once shut-down halfway through writing something in a Gnu&Linux, got a brief
warning that i ignored and it quickly timed out and continued with the
shut-down. Then i installed a completely different gnu&linux over the top of my
OS and opened the text-editor to find it reopened the unsaved text-file with
only a few words missing. Sadly it was a very unimportant note and i've not
repeated the experiment because it's too risky to do stuff like that. It
shouldn't work so it was quite a surprise.

Regards from
Tom

________________________________
From: David Nelson <lists@traduction.biz>
To: users@global.libreoffice.org
Sent: Sat, 30 July, 2011 10:41:33
Subject: Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: QUESTION: Libreoffice documents constantly
need recovery

Hi,

> Are you suggesting that if you log out of or shut down Windows when you have
> some component part of Microsoft Office 2010 open then it will just abort
> and complain next time it is opened? Are you joking? Even if you have an
> unsaved document open, Word (or whatever) - being closed by Windows - will
> challenge you to save or discard your changes. You may have a good reason
> to choose your operating system and application software, but made-up
> stories about others is not.

It will not *abort*, but the next time Word, for instance, opens you
will definitely be prompted to check whether you want to recover the
last doc(s) you were working on, even if you carefully saved the
doc(s) before ending your last session. Try it and see. Microsoft
Office and LibreOffice function fairly similarly from this viewpoint,
and it does help to prevent data loss when crashes or accidents
happen.

BTW, I am *not* getting into a "Word versus Writer stand-off" here...

--
David Nelson

--
Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to users+help@global.libreoffice.org
Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/
Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette
List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/
All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted

I think the default is to assume there was a problem that caused an
"unexpected shutdown" of any open documents. I think it is more when
power goes off or the OS decides it must reboot than when a user forgot
to shutdown the application correctly. It is very difficult for an
application to know why it shutdown "unexpectedly" so good practice is
to assume a problem occurred and any open files need to be recovered.

Juan_Carlos1 · August 1, 2011, 5:14pm

Hi David:

Actually, even closing correctly the document and without close Ubuntu, when
start any of the LO programs (for example Impress) appears again the same
dialog box with the recovery tool and the error log (that I can't find in my
home folder).

I downloaded and installed the debs packages several times and the results
are the same. I don't now if the problem is either LO or a compatibility
issue with ubuntu, java, etc.

The issue that i'm bother about is when the recovery dialog appears, I don't
now if the recovered document is the same that the last I saved, and is very
uncomfortable to have to check if the changes are still there, more if the
document is large (like a thesis).

Regards

Juan

Tom_Davies · August 1, 2011, 8:16pm

Hi

Sometimes it is better to use the LibreOffice that is in the repositories
because they have been tweaked for your specific distro. The .debs should work
fine on all Debian family distros but sometimes it's better to have one
fine-tuned to your specific distro.

Which version of Ubuntu; 10.04LTS (Lucid), 10.10 (Maveric) or 11.04 (Natty)? I
think Natty has LibreOffice in the standard repos and for the earlier ones you
can add a "PPA" to expand the repos. I'm not sure how to set-up ppas but the
url of the one i use in 10.04 is
http://ppa.launchpad.net/libreoffice/ppa/ubuntu

Also the LibreOffice versions 3.3.2 and 3.3.3 are much more stable than the
3.4.1 although if you are using the 3.4.1 you might want to try the 3.4.2 that
was fully released earlier today. You can keep the one you already have
installed and try another to compare but only by using the instructions in this
guide
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Installing_in_parallel
I think that guide might be worth looking through anyway if you have installed
and uninstalled a lot of times.

If you need to compare 2 documents or different versions of the same document i
think there are soem good tools in LibreOffice to help make that a lot easier.
The Writer Guide might be able to help
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation

Good luck and regards from
Tom

David_Nelson1 · August 2, 2011, 10:06am

Hi Juan,

Actually, even closing correctly the document and without close Ubuntu, when
start any of the LO programs (for example Impress) appears again the same
dialog box with the recovery tool and the error log (that I can't find in my
home folder).

This seems like an anomaly. Mine doesn't do that (I'm using Ubuntu as well).

I downloaded and installed the debs packages several times and the results
are the same. I don't now if the problem is either LO or a compatibility
issue with ubuntu, java, etc.

When you say "downloaded", do you mean downloaded from
libreoffice.org? As Tom mentions, it's often simpler just to use the
LibreOffice that Ubuntu ships. Is that your case? Where did you get
your LibreOffice from?

If not, I'd recommend de-installing what you've currently got and
re-installing the Ubuntu-shipped version 3.3. (If necessary I can
point you at instructions for that after you've answered the question
above.)

Juan_Carlos1 · August 2, 2011, 3:47pm

David:

I use ubuntu 10.10, which contains openoffice for default, so I had to
de-install it and download the deb packages from libreoffice.org. Also I
tried to download and install it from the PPA (ppa:libreoffice/ppa) and
occurs the same problem. Recently installed the 3.4.2 version and still
occurs the problem.

Thanks

PS:Neverless, I like this version, offers more settings options and, for
now, I have found no errors during the recovery process.

David_Nelson1 · August 3, 2011, 4:01am

Hi Juan,

I use ubuntu 10.10, which contains openoffice for default, so I had to
de-install it and download the deb packages from libreoffice.org. Also I
tried to download and install it from the PPA (ppa:libreoffice/ppa) and
occurs the same problem. Recently installed the 3.4.2 version and still
occurs the problem.

Are you ready to envision the "upgrade" to 11.04? I say "upgrade" in
quotes because my own experience with upgrading left me with a
somewhat broken system due to the roll-out of the Unity GUI as a major
change to Gnome (not an issue for you if you're a KDE or XFCE user). I
ended up totally backing-up and re-installing my system, but then
everything was back to normal.

Then you'd have an Ubuntu-integrated LibO and might have resolved the
problem. If not, you might also post to the Ubuntu user's list, too,
to see if anyone has any ideas.

But I'm not sure what issues might have crept in with the
installing/de-installing of the PPA version and installing 3.4.2 over
the top. By the way, if you install 11.04, you'll get 3.3.2, which is
not the leading edge like 3.4.2 but is perhaps a better bet for you.