OpenOffice.org automatic detection of file lock requirement does not work - WITH SOLUTION

[Thomas Ribbrock]

Binary package hint: openoffice.org

When switching from SuSE 10.0/OpenOffice 2.0 to Kubuntu 8.04/OpenOffice 2.4 I noticed that file locking no longer worked - two users were able to open the same document at the same time and save changes, with the last save winning. As this is a very undesirable situation I went to investigate. I found that (K)Ubuntu uses custom scripts to start OpenOffice and that these scripts contain some code to automatically determine whether $HOME or the edited file is located on a NFS (or Samba) share depending on the setting of FILE_LOCKING in
/etc/openoffice/soffice.sh. FILE_LOCKING defaults to "auto' so the auto detection code is used.

Unfortunately, this code does not work - file locking is never enabled, despite the fact that we use NFS-mounted home directories. Having a closer look at /usr/lib/openoffice/program/soffice revealed the problematic part:

[...current version of the script...]
if [ -z "$SAL_ENABLE_FILE_LOCKING" ]; then
    case "$FILE_LOCKING" in
        auto)
        if ! file_or_home_on_nfs "$@"; then
            # file locking now enabled by default
            SAL_ENABLE_FILE_LOCKING=1
            export SAL_ENABLE_FILE_LOCKING
        fi
[...]

The second if statement is never evaluated successfully, no matter what "file_or_home_on_nfs" returns. Hence, SAL_ENABLE_FILE_LOCKING is never set and thus file locking never enabled. I've modified the code as follows:

[...WORKING version...]
if [ -z "$SAL_ENABLE_FILE_LOCKING" ]; then
    case "$FILE_LOCKING" in
        auto)
        file_or_home_on_nfs "$@"
        if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
            # file locking now enabled by default
            SAL_ENABLE_FILE_LOCKING=1
            export SAL_ENABLE_FILE_LOCKING
        fi
[...]

This version works and correctly sets SAL_ENABLE_FILE_LOCKING to "1". This is most likely not the most elegant variant, but at least it works. I have noticed that there are more if statements like this in the same file (e.g. "if ! working_opengl_support; then" a bit further on) and I have not checked the other scripts in that directory, so there might be similar bugs waiting...

WORKAROUND:
For those who need file locking to be working before the developers have released a fix:
Set FILE_LOCKING to "yes" in /etc/openoffice/soffice.sh to force file locking on all the time (on all types of file systems).

Version Information:
> lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 8.04
Release: 8.04

> apt-cache policy openoffice.org
openoffice.org:
  Installed: 1:2.4.0-3ubuntu6
  Candidate: 1:2.4.0-3ubuntu6
  Version table:
 *** 1:2.4.0-3ubuntu6 0

[Chris Cheney (ccheney)]

Thanks for the patch, it will be in the next upload to hardy-proposed and will should make it into intrepid soon as well.

Chris Cheney

[Paul Rensing (paulrensing)]

This seems to fix a long-term problem I had. If I start OOo with a file on a local hard drive, then it would pause "forever" when I tried to open a file on an NFS mount. Same thing in reverse order. I applied the patch and it behaves better.

However, I now see a new problem. OOo is not running. From a terminal, I do "ooffice /tmp/foo.csv". The startup banner window pops up but then goes away. I get the following in the terminal:

 Locking assertion failure. Backtrace:
#0 /usr/lib/libxcb-xlib.so.0 [0x7fd26a4f297c]
#1 /usr/lib/libxcb-xlib.so.0(xcb_xlib_lock+0x15) [0x7fd26a4f2a15]
#2 /usr/lib/libX11.so.6 [0x7fd26e1bc323]
#3 /usr/lib/libX11.so.6(XCreateWindow+0x44) [0x7fd26e1b3d54]
#4 /usr/lib/libgdk-x11-2.0.so.0(gdk_window_new+0x395) [0x7fd26a09cc05]
#5 /usr/lib/libgtk-x11-2.0.so.0 [0x7fd26572b4c8]
#6 /usr/lib/libgobject-2.0.so.0(g_closure_invoke+0x10f) [0x7fd269530bcf]
#7 /usr/lib/libgobject-2.0.so.0 [0x7fd269544386]
#8 /usr/lib/libgobject-2.0.so.0(g_signal_emit_valist+0x875) [0x7fd2695460d5]
#9 /usr/lib/libgobject-2.0.so.0(g_signal_emit+0x83) [0x7fd269546483]
#10 /usr/lib/libgtk-x11-2.0.so.0(gtk_widget_realize+0x77) [0x7fd26571c957]
#11 /usr/lib/openoffice/program/libvclplug_gtk680lx.so [0x7fd265ad476d]
#12 /usr/lib/openoffice/program/libvclplug_gtk680lx.so [0x7fd265ad516a]
#13 /usr/lib/openoffice/program/libvclplug_gtk680lx.so [0x7fd265ad582b]
#14 /usr/lib/openoffice/program/libvclplug_gtk680lx.so [0x7fd265aadf64]
#15 /usr/lib/openoffice/program/libvcl680lx.so [0x7fd271a594ed]
#16 /usr/lib/openoffice/program/libvcl680lx.so [0x7fd2719ee322]
#17 /usr/lib/openoffice/program/libvcl680lx.so(_ZN9TabDialogC2EP6WindowRK5ResId+0x5f) [0x7fd271a2b1cf]
#18 /usr/lib/openoffice/program/libsvx680lx.so [0x7fd25db65084]
#19 /usr/lib/openoffice/program/libsvx680lx.so [0x7fd25dd39db4]

I don't get this if I don't give it a file on startup, and then open it later with the same command. "foo.csv" is just one line with "a,b" in it.

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

OOo 2.4.1 copied to intrepid.

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

Accepted into -proposed, please test and give feedback here

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Copied to hardy-updates.

[Thomas Ribbrock (emgaron+ubuntu)]

I tested the new package yesterday with FILE_LOCKING set to "auto" in /etc/openoffice/soffice.sh - and now it is indeed working as expected on our NFS directories. Thank you!