OpenOffice attachment won't open in Kmail

[Ace Suares]

In Kmail, I click on a OO attachment (spreadsheet, xls, whatever) and a dialog box opens, asking me if I want to save or open in OpenOffice. I choose 'Open in Openoffice' and get: the file (some temp file name) does not exist.

I need to save the attachment first.

Then if I try to Open the File with File Open (in OpenOffice) I get a Very Hard Crash (see previous bugreport).

[Andres Mujica (andres.mujica)]

I can confirm this issue mainly with openoffice attachments.

If i try several times i finally can open the file.

Ace, can you confirm this last part?, after the error message try again and again (about 3-4 times) and finally the file is opened.

Also please provide the output of:

dpkg -l | grep openoffice | grep kde

ii openoffice.org-kde 2.0.2-2ubuntu12.1

dpkg -l | grep kmail

ii kmail 3.5.4-0ubuntu1~dapper1 KDE Email client

[Andres Mujica (andres.mujica)]

I'm assigning this to kdepim, but it should go against kmail.

Please correct me if i'm wrong (i just couldn't choose kmail)

[Ace Suares (acesuares)]

dpkg -l | grep openoffice | grep kde

doesn't give anything !

# dpkg -l |grep openoffice
ii openoffice.org 2.0.4-0ubuntu2 OpenOffice.org Office suite version 2.0
ii openoffice.org-base 2.0.4-0ubuntu2 OpenOffice.org office suite - database
ii openoffice.org-calc 2.0.4-0ubuntu2 OpenOffice.org office suite - spreadsheet
ii openoffice.org-common 2.0.4-0ubuntu2 OpenOffice.org office suite architecture ind
ii openoffice.org-core 2.0.4-0ubuntu2 OpenOffice.org office suite architecture dep
ii openoffice.org-draw 2.0.4-0ubuntu2 OpenOffice.org office suite - drawing
ii openoffice.org-evolution 2.0.4-0ubuntu2 Evolution Addressbook support for OpenOffice
ii openoffice.org-gnome 2.0.4-0ubuntu2 GNOME Integration for OpenOffice.org (VFS, G
ii openoffice.org-gtk 2.0.4-0ubuntu2 GTK Integration for OpenOffice.org (Widgets,
ii openoffice.org-help-en-us 2.0.4-0ubuntu1 English_american help for OpenOffice.org
ii openoffice.org-impress 2.0.4-0ubuntu2 OpenOffice.org office suite - presentation
ii openoffice.org-java-common 2.0.4-0ubuntu2 OpenOffice.org office suite Java support arc
ii openoffice.org-l10n-common 2.0.4-0ubuntu1 common files for OpenOffice.org language and
ii openoffice.org-l10n-en-gb 2.0.4-0ubuntu1 English_british language package for OpenOff
ii openoffice.org-l10n-en-za 2.0.4-0ubuntu1 English_southafrican language package for Op
ii openoffice.org-math 2.0.4-0ubuntu2 OpenOffice.org office suite - equation edito
ii openoffice.org-style-default 2.0.4-0ubuntu2 Crystal symbol style for OpenOffice.org
ii openoffice.org-style-industrial 2.0.4-0ubuntu2 Industrial symbol style for OpenOffice.org
ii openoffice.org-thesaurus-en-us 2.0.3-2ubuntu1 English Thesaurus for OpenOffice.org
ii openoffice.org-writer 2.0.4-0ubuntu2 OpenOffice.org office suite - word processor

# dpkg -l | grep kmail
ii kmail 3.5.5-0ubuntu1 KDE Email client
ii kmailcvt 3.5.5-0ubuntu1 KDE KMail mail folder converter

I can not confirm that it will work after repeated tries; now (after the reboot) all works fine. It seems to be an intermittent problem. Also the file->open hard crash is now unavailable.

Cheers!

[Andres Mujica (andres.mujica)]

so the openoffice.org-kde package doesn't have anything to do with this bug...

maybe it's a kmail thing...

I' ve also noticed that, the problem is intermitent.

[Andres Mujica (andres.mujica)]

Ok, if i try to open the attachment from kmail i've got this message in openoffice:

/tmp/kde-myusername/FileName.sxw_[randomchars].sxw doesn't exist

if i try several times it changes the randomchars until it open the file (not always, most of the time the file won't open at all)

if i look at /tmp i can find the file, not one time but twice... and it's with this path and name:

/tmp/kde-myusername/kontactHidFOb.3/filename.sxw

/tmp/kde-myusername/kontactkg4wta.3/filename.sxw

if i open it from ooo file picker it opens fine.

[Matthew Carpenter (matt-eisgr)]

I believe this has to do with the hand-off from Kmail to OOo, to the component of OOo handling the attachment. Kmail hands off to OOo, and when OOo exits (or the file is not opened? - lsof style), it deletes the file in /tmp. While this is a fine approach for most apps, OOo probably does some internal hand-off which delays loading of the temporary attachment. Kmail deletes the file, thinking that it's job is done, but the OOo component app never had a chance to open it.

This has been an issue for some time. Can we get it resolved? Kmail should either hand off to a different component, or (mo betta) figure out the timing issue and wait a little longer before deleting it, or track usage better.

[Andres Mujica (andres.mujica)]

Well, what i've learned is that almost every tiem i try to open an OO
attachment from kmail, i must try several times as faster as i can and it
finally opens.

If the attachment has ñ ò ì type characters it won't open at all, but this is
part of another bug.

BUT.. as i mentioned earlier on this bug report i've noticed this:

I clic to open the OO attachment file

OO throws a file not found error pointing to the non-existant file

/tmp/kde-andres.mujica/call flow II.xls_[yJLETA].xls

but if i check at /tmp i've found the file here:

/tmp/kde-andres.mujica/kontactb74dfa.5/call flow ii.xls

even if i clic on openoffice ok to accept the error.

If the gods are with me and the file opens, it appears to be opened
from /tmp/kde-andres.mujica/call flow II.xls_[vutiJA].xls

and surpringsily for me , the file is not there!!!! haven't noticed this....

that's what i can tell about this.

If you've got any ideas of a formal check or some debug that i can do in order
to help solve this bug i would be glad to do it.

Sometime ago i've triied to find something similar upstream without success..
so maybe we'rea alone on this one.

Regards!

El Miércoles, 28 de Marzo de 2007 15:04, Matthew Carpenter escribió:
> I believe this has to do with the hand-off from Kmail to OOo, to the
> component of OOo handling the attachment. Kmail hands off to OOo, and
> when OOo exits (or the file is not opened? - lsof style), it deletes the
> file in /tmp. While this is a fine approach for most apps, OOo probably
> does some internal hand-off which delays loading of the temporary
> attachment. Kmail deletes the file, thinking that it's job is done, but
> the OOo component app never had a chance to open it.
>
> This has been an issue for some time. Can we get it resolved? Kmail
> should either hand off to a different component, or (mo betta) figure
> out the timing issue and wait a little longer before deleting it, or
> track usage better.

--
Andrés Mauricio Mujica Zalamea
Consultor Linux RHCE #804005093216652
SEAQ SERVICIOS CIA LTDA

[Jason Elwell (elwell-smartlp)]

I see the exact same behavior as previously reported. It happens intermittently with any attachment that is being handled by OpenOffice.
I am running Kubuntu Fiesty (KDE 3.5.6) See grep below:

 dpkg -l | grep kmail
ii kmail 3.5.6-0ubuntu6 KDE Email client
ii kmailcvt 3.5.6-0ubuntu6 KDE KMail mail folder converter

[Andres Mujica (andres.mujica)]

I'm linking this bug to upstream both kde and openoffice.

within kde there was several bug reports specially this 2:

http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=39537
http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=130709

within openoffice there wasn't any report so i created a new one.

http://qa.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=76999

[Andres Mujica (andres.mujica)]

forgot this one, has a nice description of the problem

http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=143670

[Ace Suares (acesuares)]

I can confirm this bug still exists in Feisty.

[Chris Cheney (ccheney)]

This is a bug in kdelibs as noted in KDE upstream bug 130709 but upstream KDE doesn't appear to actually want to fix the bug. They want every app that "talk to a running instance" to have a helper script for kde use to sleep long enough for the app to open the file before kdelibs deletes it from under it.

[Chris Cheney (ccheney)]

This bug was assigned to kdepim but as noted in KDE upstream bug #130709 it is actually a bug in kdelibs. Upstream will need to be prodded to actually fix the bug however since they seem to be of the opinion that every app a user wants to use with kde that communicates with a running instance needs a helper script specifically for KDE.

[Ace Suares (acesuares)]

This seems to be perfectly solved in Gutsy. Hoorah !

[Przemek K. (azrael)]

If this bug doesn't appear anymore in Gutsy then it should be marked as fixed. If you find that it appears in Hardy then open it again,

[Matthew Carpenter (matt-eisgr)]

On Friday 25 April 2008, Przemysław Kulczycki wrote:
> ** Summary changed:
>
> - OO attachment won't open in Kmail
> + OpenOffice attachment won't open in Kmail
>
> ** Description changed:
>
> - In Kmail, I click on a OO attachemnt (spreadsheet, xls, whatever) and a
> + In Kmail, I click on a OO attachment (spreadsheet, xls, whatever) and a
> dialog box opens, asking me if I want to save or open in OpenOffice. I
> choose 'Open in Openoffice' and get: the file (some temp file name) does
> not exist.
>
> I need to save the attachment first.
>
> Then if I try to Open the File with File Open (in OpenOffice) I get a
> Very Hard Crash (see previous bugreport).

This now works for me in Hardy 8.04