[ooo-build] [i386] OpenOffice crashes when saving .doc file with "notes" in it, Karmic.

Does this still happen if you remove the openoffice.org-kde package?

I do not have openoffice.org-kde installed. Here is a list of what appears when I have installed with "openoffice.org*" according to apt-get. Let me know if I can provide any additional info.

openoffice.org-base-core
openoffice.org-draw
openoffice.org-help-en-us
openoffice.org-math
openoffice.org-writer
openoffice.org-calc
openoffice.org-emailmerge
openoffice.org-hyphenation
openoffice.org-style-human
openoffice.org-common
openoffice.org-gnome
openoffice.org-hyphenation-en-us
openoffice.org-thesaurus-en-au
openoffice.org-core
openoffice.org-gtk
openoffice.org-impress
openoffice.org-thesaurus-en-us

Purged all packages and re-installed all openoffice.org* packages. Removed .openoffice.org folder to rule out any local modification. After reinstall, removed openoffice.org-gnome and openoffice.org-gtk...and it still does it!

Bounce. Am I the only one affected by this bug? Is there any information I can provide to further help the diagnostic? Two days before the official release of Karmic Koala, all my updates done, and I still cannot save notes in *.doc files.

After updating my system to Karmic and running OOo 1:3.1.1-5ubuntu1 I can not reproduce this issue. I am able to save to Microsoft Word 97/2000/XP format just fine with notes attached.

I'm having the same problem as billjoie, except that this emerged ONLY with the final release. I did not have this problem, earlier on. I've uninstalled, reinstalled, purged, etc., it is as Billjoie says. In fact, I've had to move over to Windows XP to use OpenOffice 3.1.1. on that platform, for the commenting on essays that I routinely do.

Hi Geriborg, In the end, what I had to do was:
1) purge Openoffice and any program having anything to do with openoffice, delete local directory configurations ,etc.
2) Make sure you reinstall java properly
3) Download the installation zip file from the openoffice.org website, and decompress it with file-roller
4) From the DEB directory, install all deb files with "sudo dpkg -i *deb" (I know this is not the most prudent move in the world)
5) Move to the subdirectory to install the "desktop integration", still with "sudo dpkg -i *deb"
...now it works very smoothly. No need to go back to Windows...misery! I really hope someone can understand what is happening, though. If any system configuration info is required to solve this issue, please let me know.

I have the same problem in Karmic official version (upgraded from Jaunty). To reprocude:
1- Create a new document in openoffice.
2- Insert a new note (Ctrl+Alt+N)
3- Write "abc"
4- Press save as MS Word 97/2000/XP

It consistently caches for me.

I don't recall having this problem in Jaunty.

the same with me on Gnome.

when I try to save a document with at least on "Note", it crashes, the file being not saved.

Same here with final karmic (kubuntu, updated from jaunty).

It is a real PITA for me at the moment (have to go through a lot of students papers and add comments to them).

If this is not some rare issue then it is a major showstopper for a lot of people.

Is there any additional information I can give?

Same here with final karmic (kubuntu, updated from jaunty).

I used the same document as .doc and .odt on jaunty with no problems.

When I remove the comments from the document I can save to .doc format. But when I close the .doc file then OOo still crashes, but with now harm to any file.

In Karmic, with all the updates installed, Openoffice still crashes on saving documents (with notes in) to *.doc (tested on 3 machines, one of which has a clean install of Karmic).

I can confirm this behavior too. After crash, all notes are lost upon file recovery. Like Indrek, I am trying to comment on student essays and this as become a HUGE problem for me as I teach distance education...

I think this is a pretty critical bug.

I should add that I am not running the Beta...but the release of 9.10.

It's a huge trouble really. Confirmed on 9.10 release. Is there any workaround at least?

Hi Arise,
Yes there is a work around, that is what my post of the 1st of November was about. First you totally remove openoffice from your computer, then you install java (if not already there). Then you download the program (deb files) from the openoffice.org website, and install them with dpkg. It worked for me, openoffice works flawlessly. If these instructions (combined with previous post) are not clear enough, don't hesitate to ask.

Hi billjoie,
Thanx for trying to help! Actually, the idea of removing Ubuntu's built-in "Go-oo" (Novell's) and installing something else came first of all. Well, installing SUN's binaries might help, but for one little thing: SUN's builds suck, they have performance and usability issues (oh I remember that ugly "scale" pop-up dialog in OpenOffice.org 2.x). I ended up installing Infraresourse OpenOffice 3.1.1 build from third-party repo (Infraresourse is a russian company that distributes its own OpenOffice build, stuffed with some Russia-specific improvements; *.deb binaries are found here http://bouncer.i-rs.ru/?product=OpenOffice.org&lang=ru&version=3.1.1&os=linuxinteldeb ). Well, Openoffice quit crushing every now and than, but it's a "crutch" anyway and it's a big hustle if you have more than one ubuntu-powered computer. So I wondered if there's any possibillity to get naitive Ubuntu's "Go-oo" working, as it outperforms all the competitors (it's noticeable on my hardware at least).

Sorry for my clumsy English

BilliJoe,

I removed ALL Open Office packages w/ Synaptic and installed the Sun .debs. The install went fine but it still crashes when using a .doc file.

There are some additional packages not containing "OpenOffice.org" in their names but still related to OpenOffice, one of them causes all the mess. Though I can't figure out which one is that "bad guy".

For information

I have a brand new installation of Karmic 9.10 with OOo built and all up to date. Never been touched before.
I wanted to move from Word. I can open and edit word documents , but the OOo spell checker is not functioning, and any attempts to use the options menu in OOo produce crashes at diffferent points with a frozen Ubuntu and mouse movement only. The effect is an unusable OOo at the moment.

Will remove and try re install though Ubuntu Software Centre before attempting the above recommendations

Further to my last post I can confirm that I have carried out the above thread instructions removed all packages via Synaptic uninstaller and also via the terminal by sudo apt-get remove purge open office.org followed up by sudo apt-get autoremove (as prompted) which removed some other stuff. (Software Centre Uninstall ineffective)

Then obtained the Linux deb version from Open Office Org web site using the Get More Platforms line and selecting in my case 32 bit version Ubuntu & Deb English US
this file is OOo_3.1.1_LinuxIntel_install_en-US_deb.tar.gz Placed in the home folder
then via the terminal extracted with this command tar -vxzf OOo_3.1.1_LinuxIntel_install_en-US_deb.tar.gz
this creates a new folder in the home folder called 000310_m19_native_packed-1_en-US.9420 (hidden folder)
then cd debs to change to the sub folder inside it
then sudo dpkg -i *.deb which completes the installation
any attempt to fiddle with menus after this is declined (mentioned in tutorials elsewhere for earlier version of OOo)
I can now open Writer with resultant more time between crashes, but still no working Spelling checker.
This post is not totally related to the above thread except that I think there must be a large bug preventing Karmic and Open Office working together. Reluctantly I'm returning to Microsoft Word until it is sorted out.
I'm a Linux beginner but also a working person who needs a working word processor.

Has anyone who experienced this bug been running on something other than i386? The system I am testing on that can't reproduce this bug is amd64 so that might be why. I will try to get a i386 disc to test with to see if that is the issue.

Hi Chris,
I use i386.

Hi, I have reported the same bug to openoffice bug-tracker but after carefully checks they closed it because does not apply to the build downloadable from their site. It happens in other UNIX OS but not in all UNIX OS. Bug report could be read by the following link, please take a look:

http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=106951

I could reproduce this bug using a fresh installation of ubuntu 9.10 on a virtual machine (vBox). Windows version of OpenOffice 3.1.1 do not seem to present the bug.

I confirm that I have the same problem crashing with notes inserted in a document. I am running kubuntu 9.10 with the latest updates. I have OpenOffice 3.1.1 OOO310m19 (Build 9420).

Everything works fine if I remove the "notes" and then save.

This is a very critical problem, since I constantly work with documents passed on to windows users..

I confirm that uninstalling the Ubuntu version of OpenOffice 3.1.1 and installing the native version from Openoffice.org the problem is gone. However, for those who prefer to wait until this bug is fixed in the Ubuntu repositories, and do not want to install non-ubuntu packages, BUT are in a *hurry* that requires a rapid but temporary solution, I found that the portable version of OpenOffice (for windows) seems to works well using wine, this version can be easily disposed afterwards. It can be found at:

http://portableapps.com/apps/office/openoffice_portable

A bit more information: I found that when I opened a MS Word document with Comments already in the document, Ooo worked with no problems or crashes.

 It seems to crash for me only when I try to save an odt document with notes to a file in MS Word format.

I have the same problem, and I completely removed everything related to Open Office in Synaptic. I then did a fresh install from Open Office.org. After I navigate to the folder that was extracted, and use "sudo dpkg -i *deb" to try to install it, I got:

dpkg: error processing *deb (--install):
 cannot access archive: No such file or directory
Errors were encountered while processing:
 *deb

I'm also in a critical problem and have a large load of student papers that need comments.
Can anyone help with this?

Thanks!

Sorry, I just realized I had to navigate one folder deeper. I now have the version from Open Office installed, but it crashes on startup each and every time now. This is a serious problem for me.

Sorry you are having a bad Ubuntu experience there. When exactly does OpenOffice crash (introduction screen, after, etc.)? Did you install the desktop integration that is in the subdirectory? Do you have java installed? Did you get any error message during installation?

Open Office crashes on the introduction screen when I attempt to open "writer". I have been able to open other types of documents "draw" or "impress" and then open a text document from "File --> New --> Text Document". I was then able to open a file and save it in .doc format without crashing! I was then able to make changes and add notes to a file without saving it. This is great news so far, and thanks for the suggestions above.

I did a search in Synaptic, and it looks as if I do have sun-java6-jre, sun-java5-jre, and "default-jre-headless" all installed. Would deleting one of these solve my problem (which is still a problem, but not as severe as before).

I didn't get any error message on installation that I'm aware of.

Thanks!

correction to the last post: the second-to-last sentence of the first paragraph should say, "I was then able to...and add notes without *it crashing when* saving it." (a significant difference)

Sorry, thanks so much for your help. My problem is solved now. I hadn't installed the desktop integration in the sub-directory. Not it all opens beautifully. Thanks again.

Ugh. My problem is NOT solved. Now it is crashing again after a reboot. Can this be a java version problem? What do I need to do? Thanks

I just ran across this bug at the worst time - trying to grade draft papers (by inserting notes), I have to revert to Jaunty so that I can get through this

To reproduce: open .doc file, insert note (control-alt-note), type note, save....crash.

Some documents can't even be recovered with the note(s).

I uninstalled ooo and tried the openoffice 3.1 from openoffice.org site and it crashed on launch when trying to open a .doc file.

I uninstalled that, deleted the .openoffice folder and re-installed the ubuntu ooo package, and now openoffice has a windows 98 look & feel.

But, it doesn't crash when loading or saving a .doc file, with or without notes.

The crashing on save started occuring again. It crashes on .doc files for which I've inserted a note.

This bug is particularly bothersome. I grade and comment student papers by using OO's notes functions and now is grading time!!
What I do to get aound the problem, is save everything in odt.hen use zamzar.com to covert to .doc and then maio the file to the students.

Novell isn't even acknowledging the bug exists, and this bug report is tied to them now.

I'm back in Jaunty now, it's the only permanent solution.

@Doug
> Novell isn't even acknowledging the bug exists, and this bug report is tied to them now.
If you read the upstream bug report, you'll see that the openSUSE developers are working to fix this, they just need some more info on the source of the problem, that's why it is marked incomplete upstream. If you want to help fix this, help out with the upstream bug.

I've installed 64-bit Ubuntu 9.10 and can confirm Chris Cheney's earlier
observation that the bug appears not to be reproducible there. For
whatever that's worth....

Gabe Gorelick wrote:
> @Doug
>
>> Novell isn't even acknowledging the bug exists, and this bug report is tied to them now.
>>
> If you read the upstream bug report, you'll see that the openSUSE developers are working to fix this, they just need some more info on the source of the problem, that's why it is marked incomplete upstream. If you want to help fix this, help out with the upstream bug.
>
>

Oh, God... Ubuntu developers doesn't have to communicate with ms word users? More that 50 days and nothing happens?
And I cant use Sun's .deb because I have to install bibus, that uses python uno and I cant make it communicates with openoffice. Please, pay attention to this bug!

Right now, the upstream bug is waiting on someone to make sure this bug still exists in the current code. If people want to help get this bug solved, grab the latest upstream build and report back upstream whether this bug still exists.

Sorry about my ignorance, but how can I get upstream build? Any kind of repo to put on sources.list? Or there is .deb packages to download? I can test this because I have some files to be converted to .doc

I think I am also experiencing this issue (or one with a very similar symptom). The cause seems to be different so I'm not 100% sure. For me I have been working on a .doc (that was created with Ooo3.1.1 on WinXP) and have just added a Ooo Draw drawing and on saving it crashed. It saves fine in .odt or .docx

I am using Karmic i386 with standard (latest) Ooo3.1.1 (OOO310m19-Build:9420)
[openoffice.org-core 1:3.1.1-5ubuntu1]

I too am interested in testing the upstream build but have no idea where to get it from either. Anyone help us out here?

Is this bug the same as Bug #454545 (which has been marked as "fix released" - in v3.2)?

Also even though it seems to save ok in .docx the picture is gone.

@JedMeister: To find out, whether you're problem is the same as the one reported here, you should 1) install the -dbgsym packages for openoffice (see here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingProgramCrash) and 2) start openoffice under the gdb debugger like this:
  gdb /usr/lib/openoffice/program/soffice.bin
Then, in the gdb console enter
  run -writer
and reproduce the crash. If in gdb you get an output like:
  Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
  0x03de0747 in WW8_SdrAttrIter::OutParaAttr () from /usr/lib/openoffice/basis3.1/program/libmswordli.so
then it is very likely the same problem. If you get the error in a different function, consider filing a new bug (ideally with a sample document triggering the bug) and possibly include a full backtrace (instructions here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Backtrace )

Bug #454545 is a different bug and not (at least not directly) related.

Note: The bug filed here is one that does not seem to be present when using the original openoffice.org package (from http://download.openoffice.org/index.html but be aware that these packages have other issues :-/ ), but only with the ooo-build version that is used by many linux distributions (see comment #59). The "novell-bugs #559714 " is about ooo-build. To test their newest version (like I did, see that bug) you would have to build it from sources, which takes *very* long, uses ~10GB of disk space and is not really recommendable if you're not experienced building from source.

The good news is that apparently, the crash reported here will be gone with v3.2 as well. The code that seems to trigger the crash is no longer present, because the word export filter has been reworked.

FYI: Upstream (ooo-build) mark the bug as “fixed” because it no longer exists in 3.2 -- unfortunately there will be no backport to 3.1, so we have to wait until 3.2 is released in its final state (~2 weeks) and packaged for Ubuntu.

Hey Marcel, Thanks for your detailed and noob friendly help with my bug. Hopefully this 3.2 fix will fix my bug too (sounds likely). I have been really busy lately and so haven't completed all the steps you spelled out for me, but I wanted to let you know I really appreciated the effort you put into your response.

So does all of 3.2 have to be backported to really fix this on Karmic?

Release Candidate 2 for OpenOffice.org 3.2 has been released - see http://www.openoffice.org/news/#32rc2

Unfortunately this version is not being tracked in Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx - see https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/openoffice.org

Anyone who is affected by this bug and wants to see the fix in Lucid will need to tell the package maintainer (in this case the Ubuntu Development Team, a link to their page is at the ubuntu source link above) quickly, as the feature freeze is on February 18th 2010. The partner upload deadline is on January 28th 2010, but this shouldn't matter at there is already an OpenOffice.org package of some kind in Lucid. See the Lucid Release Schedule at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LucidReleaseSchedule for more info.

According to this blueprint, https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/desktop-lucid-openoffice, Lucid is already targeting OOo 3.2.1.

Thanks Gabe, that's good to know. Sounds like they will be adding it after the feature freeze, and possibly after the beta 1 freeze.

I'm wondering if there is a 3.2rc2 PPA for Lucid available anywhere?

@madbiologist:
> I'm wondering if there is a 3.2rc2 PPA for Lucid available anywhere?
I think first, ooo-build (see comment #59) has to be released for 3.2 (AFAIK, it follows a release by openoffice.org by about 2 weeks or so). Then it will probably appear in this PPA: https://launchpad.net/~openoffice-pkgs/+archive/ppa

Hello,
Not sure if this helps... But had similar problems with Open Office crashing often with a fresh install of 9.10, but not when running 9.10 Live off a USB stick. Noted that the difference was that I had encrypted my home directory with the option available on install of 9.10. Installed again with home directory encryption off, and Open Office has not crashed since! Was having crashes with other programs also (jPilot, others) but running solidly now that I have removed encryption. Not a permanent fix obviously, but hope this helps lead in the right direction. I had tried the Sun version of oo, etc. and still got occasional crashes... but all is fine now!
-Neil

OpenOffice.org 3.2 Release Candidate 5 has been released - see http://www.openoffice.org/news/index.html#32rc5

i've got the same problem....at first it was ok, and i could save as .doc ...but since 2 weeks i cannot.....

My girlfriend was working on an 80 page report for work today. The report contained many notes and it was necessary to save the document as .doc since her co-workers are old dogs who only know m$. Oo crashed when she tried to save the file. I managed to solve the problem by uninstalling the Ubuntu Oo 3.1 package and installing 3.2 from Openoffice.org. This solved the problem and she was then able to save the report as a .doc.

The final version of OpenOffice.org 3.2 was released on 11th February 2010 - see http://www.openoffice.org/news/

Now we just have to wait for the corresponding ooo-build to be released for 3.2.

Is there any repository or ppa with OpenOffice.org 3.2 already backported from Lucid to Karmic?
It looks like OOo 3.2 is really needed to fix this bug.

I get this crash on my i386 desktop, but not when I ssh to my amd64 server and run oowriter from there (both run Karmic).

no recent comment