Bug 59980

Please attach the document showing this behavior.

Created attachment 73786 [details]
Sample Writer file that crashes Writer under Windows XP Pro x64

Actually, I should mention that this happens with Calc files as well.  It's not Writer-specific.  I just happen to be working with Writer files lately.  I'll attach a Calc file that crashes under Win XP Pro x64 as well.

Created attachment 73787 [details]
Sample Calc file that crashes Calc under Win XP x64

Hi Sam,

I can not reproduce with:
Win7x64 Ultimate.
Version 3.6.5.2 (Build ID: 5b93205)

Both files open right, without visible errors.

Have you tried to reset the user profile?.
Sometimes solve strange issues.

I didn't report the bug against Win7x64 Ultimate, mariosv.  I reported it against Windows XP Pro x64.

I've uninstalled/installed LibreOffice many times to address this problem, and it has continued over some minor version updates.  If my user profile persists across those installs, I'll look up how to reset it and report back in a separate comment.

https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/UserProfile

Thanks, Mario.  Unfortunately - no luck.  I renamed my user profile, fired up LibreOffice, opened one of the problematic documents which I attached to this bug, and got the same crash as always.  It would have been a nice "fix".  I did nothing in LibreOffice between firing it up with a new user profile and opening the doc.

Thinking about,
Have you selected a Java 64?
LibreOffice is a 32 bits app and only works with Java 32.
(Menu/Tools/LibreOffice/Java.)

I do not see the crash with Windows 7 Pro, x86_64.

Yifan, Tor, Andras, do you have Windows XP around? Any chance to try it there?

This bug is not easy to reproduce. Also I am not aware of similar bugreports. So, it looks to be somehow specific to your system. Such bugs could not block the release => lowering the severity a bit.

BTW: Do you have installed any extension that is not part of the official LO installer?

Yeah, I didn't mean to suggest that this bug should block releases.  I just meant that it's blocking me from using LibreOffice on my Win XP Pro x64 machine.  Sorry about that.  It's a pretty obscure OS.  It's "critical" for me, probably pretty low priority for the rest of the world. :)

As for Java, the Oracle 32-bit JRE is installed.

As for the install, it's the plain Windows install using the defaults.  Nothing extra.  Just the installer that you download with the download button on the LibreOffice home page.

Sam:
Ok so no LO extensions according to your last comment.

Did you install any specific fonts on your XP 64 pro? If yes could you backup them and remove them from Windows fonts for the test?
Is your machine up-to-date to last 1.6 or 1.7 Java version?

I don't think it will help but you indicated you upgraded LO quite often because of this bug and so it will allow us (at least me :-) ) to be sure there's nothing wrong on this machine.
Did you give a try to raw method?
- uninstall LO
- remove LO directory if any + LO directory profile
- clean Windows registry with a free tool (like ccleaner for example)
- install again

If you still reproduce it, you may bring extra information by following this link https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/BugReport#How_to_get_a_backtrace_.28on_Windows.29

bfoman: I don't know what precise Windows version you have but I know you're the guy for bt on Windows :-) Could you give a try to the files attached by reporter?

Yes, I have XP in a virtual machine. (Just 32-bit, though.) Will try to reproduce.

As expected, could not reproduce on 32-bit XP. Downloading the 64-bit XP ISO from MSDN now... will take a while to install, add service packs, and recommended updates.

OK, installed XP Pro x64 in a virtual machine, installed the SP2 and all Windows Update patches. Then the TDF build of LibreOffice 3.6.4.3 (Build ID: 2ef5aff).

No crash when opening the p202s13-sections.odt;)

Does the bug reporter for instance have some anti-virus software active? Does turning that off make the crash go away?

(In reply to comment #11)
> bfoman: I don't know what precise Windows version you have but I know you're
> the guy for bt on Windows :-) Could you give a try to the files attached by
> reporter?

I don't have access to Windows XP 64 bit.

Julien, "registry cleaning" is mostly superstition, folklore and placebo effect.

Tor: when you see the numbers of errors of a Windows machine which "lived" a little without any cleaning, it can't worsen things.
Now I agree, there's little chance it solves a problem on LO.

It seems to me that Tor's lack of reproducing this bug points to it being specific to my machine, not a general bug.  This is a fairly old Windows XP Pro 64 install, many things have come and gone.  But I haven't been able to open LO files created on other machines for a long time.

Keep in mind, though: I can CREATE and continue to use LO files that are created on this machine.  I have a bunch of files that I only use on this machine that open fine.  It's only files that have been created/saved elsewhere, either under 32-bit Windows or 32-bit Xubuntu Linux machine or 64-bit Fedora Linux.

Just for completeness' sake, I'll upload a local file that DOES work just fine on my Win XP Pro 64 machine.  I make sure not to save it elsewhere (it's my motorcycle service log and my x64 machine is in the basement close to the motorcycle).

Created attachment 73924 [details]
A Calc file that DOES open fine in my Win XP Pro 64

This is a file that was created and is maintained only on the Windows XP Pro x64 machine.  It always opens and saves just fine.  Files like this have convinced me that I can't open files that are saved on OTHER machines.  I've never had a problem opening/saving an LO file that was created and saved only on this Win 64 machine.

Sam: except if I missed something, I thought about this test:
1) Create a brand new Writer file containing just "test" on machine Win XP Pro 64 (so buggy one) and name it "test_XP64Pro.odt"

2) Create a brand new Writer file containing just "test" on other machine
"test_other.odt"

3) check that test_other.odt make Win XP Pro 64 crash.

4) since odt, ods, ... files are just zip files, you can unzip them and search for the diff.

(you can also zip both odt files and attach them to the tracker)

Excellent idea, Julien. And before running the diff, it is a good idea to run the .xml files through some xml pretty-printer (like xmllint --format), otherwise they will all be just one huge long line...

Good call, Julien.  Unfortunately, your test failed to reproduce the bug - I actually CAN open the minimalist Win32 test file on my Win64 machine, I think this is the first time I've been able to do that.

So, I thought I'd doublecheck, I opened a problematic Calc file on the Win32 machine, made a couple changes, saved it, transferred it to the Win64 machine and tried to open it.  Crash, as usual.

So, finally I made a test Calc file on the Win32 machine with the word "test" in cell A1.  Transferred it to the Win64 machine.  Opens fine.

Unfortunately, the bug now appears to not be robust - it depends on the file, or at least the file size.  Any sizable files, either Writer or Calc, saved under Win32 crash when being opened on Win64.  But a simple file with the word "test" doesn't reproduce the bug.

I don't think you guys should pursue this one - it's clearly very specific to my situation, and I can live with it, as annoying as it is.  But thanks for all the help in trying to diagnose it!

I don't know if you can close a bug without resolving it, but that's my suggestion at this point.

OK. Let's resolve as WORKSFORME then, which is intended for situations like this;) If you figure out something later, please add a comment, it would be interesting!

Sam:
Focused on "NOTE: if I CREATE and SAVE a document in LibreOffice under XP Pro x64, it continues to open fine under that system and any other system.  But once that file has been saved on another system, LibreOffice crashes out when trying to open it under XP Pro x64."
Do you still have a Calc or Writer example (with minimum things in it) where you got a version ok for XP Pro x64 + a version ko (with the least difference possible, ideally just a save on the other than xppro64 machine :-))?
If yes, could you zip both files and attach the zip here?

Hope I was clear if not I'll give a new try :-)

Understood.  I should be able to cook a "minimal" Writer or Calc file that reproduces the bug, rather than these larger files that I only have from the XP32 or Linux saves.  It may take me a while to get to such a file.  I guess I'll just start stripping things from the file that breaks until it doesn't break any more and then take one step back. :) Or, if it never stops breaking, we'll have a new minimal "test" file that does, in fact, break.

Tor: you're absolutely right for xml formatting.
I didn't know xmllint, I was using this:
cat **file** | tidy -utf8 -xml -w 255 -i -c -q -asxml > **new_file**

I will give a try to xmllint, thank you for the tip!

Sam: great! We'll wait for your feedback.

A bit more info on this one: I created a Calc spreadsheet, populated it, made a chart, all fine.  Then, when I clicked on the Font or Font Style tab in the Titles dialog, LO crashed.  The file was recovered fine, but this is reproducible.  I think the previous problem with files created elsewhere may have to do with this font issue, since crashes required some text to be in those files.

If you have any tips on how to fix this, let me know.

FWIW, Apache OpenOffice 3.4.1 reproduces this bug.  It's pretty deep in the code, I think.  LibreOffice 4.0 continues the bug, but not QUITE as bad, I can edit files that used to crash instantly.  But eventually files will crash, always if I do a Format->Page and some other standard crash-causing operations.

Created attachment 76978 [details]
LO 4.0.3 uninstall dialog on Win XP Pro x64

LO 4.0.3 has gotten so bad I can't even open it under Win XP Pro x64. So, I'm uninstalling it, and here is the uninstall dialog. :) LO definitely has serious issues with fonts under Win XP Pro x64. (And I tried removing all fonts and installing LO, same problems.) Real shame I can't use it on my x64 box, but I understand that my situation is not reproducible elsewhere.

You may try to install 4.0.1 without uninstalling (since you can't anyway) LO 4.0.0.3. It has a very slight chance to help but since it doesn't take too long to test...

4.0.2 will be released soon (see https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleasePlan#4.0_release).

Thanks, Julien! I'll definitely keep trying. I'm a hard-core LibreOffice user, this is only one of many computers that I use regularly, but an important one. I'll keep checking and keep posting up anything new I discover, I appreciate you still monitoring this non-bug. :)

The font problem in the uninstall dialog is known, and it is specific to XP, not just 64-bit XP. There is a bug report already open for it.

The version field is supposed to show the earliest version where the problem was found, not the latest where it has been seen. See https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/BugReport_Details#Version . In other words, one is not supposed to change it after filing a bug unless it was entered incorrectly initially.

Sorry, Tor! That totally makes sense. I was thinking I was propagating the bug forward, but of course an unresolved bug will be tested against newer versions and reported as unresolved. Changed it back to 3.6.5, which I've reverted to on the XP64 machine (it's working better than v4, which basically crapped out entirely).

I'm happy to report that this bug seems to have totally disappeared in 3.6.6.2! I had 4.0 loaded and it was AWFUL in terms of this bug; then 3.6.6.2 came out, I uninstalled 4.0, installed 3.6.6.2, and things have been fine ever since!