libreoffice unity menu bars greyed out after opening any dialog or switching window

[Alberto Perdomo]

Ubuntu Release: Ubuntu 12.10 Quantal Quetzal beta1
Package version: libreoffice-gtk
Package version: 1:3.6.1~rc2-1ubuntu3

Behavior: Triggering an action from the menu, i.e. opening a file , turns the menu into disabled state. This happens randomly and sometimes also without any action triggers.

This is a new issue we have discovered in the latest versions of Unity/Gtk+. This wrong behavior is not present in precise pangolin and Quantal Alpha 3. Can someone please confirm if this is an issue in Unity/Gtk+?

[Allison Karlitskaya (desrt)]

I think this is more likely to be a bug in libreoffice since we have quite a lot of apps that are working properly with Unity/Gtk in Q and the libreoffice code is new.

I welcome a small testcase that demonstrates the issue. Otherwise we're going to have to go digging through some rather large D-Bus logs to find the truth....

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Allison Karlitskaya (desrt)]

I've tried to reproduce this bug and for me it's not happening as described.

What does happen, however, with 100% reliability, is that the actions are disabled when switching away from the window and back to it again. In the case of triggering actions like "Open" or "About" this would indeed cause the foreground window to be changed (to the open or about dialog). This is probably a unity-panel-service bug (probably in the appmenu indicator).

For me, the bug does not happen with other actions like copy/paste that do not display new windows....

[Antonio Fernández (antonio-fernandez-vega)]

Yes, you are right. The issue seems to be happening when the window which holds the menu lose the focus.

Should we report this as a unity-panel-service bug then?

[Adam Bruce (brucey-99-deactivatedaccount)]

I think this and Bug #1047573 may be duplicates. The reproduction steps are a little clearer and I confirm they happen to me too:

1) Launch a LibreOffice such as Libreoffice-calc using the dash
2) Open the File menu; observe that menu items such as 'Exit' are not greyed out
3) Open a dialog from within LibreOffice. For example, in cal use Data-->Pivot Table-->Create
4) Close the dialog, either by cancelling it or pressing OK
5) Open the File menu

Expected results:
Items in the file menu are not greyed out

Actual results:
All items in the File menu (such as "Exit") are greyed out, with the exception of submenus like "New" and "Recent Documents".

We can mark them as dups if you feel they are the same

[Antonio Fernández (antonio-fernandez-vega)]

Yes, I think it is the same issue. Go ahead.

[Adam Bruce (brucey-99-deactivatedaccount)]

Ryan, you're right, the bug simply occurs whenever the main libre office window is no longer active and then is returned to

[Nicolas Guichard (cocolas-nicolas)]

The menus are disabled after trying to use the HUD too…

[Allison Karlitskaya (desrt)]

A bit more info on this: the bug is caused by the gtk_menu_detach() call in the "cloaking" code in libindicator. The menu gets detached from its GtkMenuItem, which breaks the GtkModelMenu logic (specifically: it separates it from the action group so all actions disappear, disabling the items). The decloak code doesn't reverse this.

We could workaround it in indicator-appmenu by associating the actions directly with each submenu but I think we should probably fix this in libindicator instead. The "cloak" logic is pretty suspicious....

[Charles Kerr (charlesk)]

I agree with Ryan's thoughts in comment #9 and am looking into removing the "cloak" code.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Matt Sturgeon (mattsturgeon)]

Two possibly related bugs: Bug #1045353 "Commands are not displayed in the HUD" - using the HUD also seems to grey out the menu - and Bug #1049612 "Libre Offices global menu does not appear randomly when opening the application" - menu not visible at all (see Attachment 3309561)

[Matt Sturgeon (mattsturgeon)]

Attachment #3309561: https://bugs.launchpad.net/df-libreoffice/+bug/1049612/+attachment/3309561/+files/libreofficetest.mp4

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package libindicator - 12.10.0-0ubuntu2

---------------
libindicator (12.10.0-0ubuntu2) quantal; urgency=low

  * Backport a fix so that libroffice doesn't hang on on startup (LP: #1045372)
 -- Didier Roche <email address hidden> Mon, 17 Sep 2012 11:13:49 +0200

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package indicator-applet - 12.10.0-0ubuntu2

---------------
indicator-applet (12.10.0-0ubuntu2) quantal; urgency=low

  * Backport a fix so that libroffice doesn't hang on on startup (LP: #1045372)
 -- Didier Roche <email address hidden> Mon, 17 Sep 2012 11:13:15 +0200

[Chris Hermansen (c-hermansen)]

I see above that supposedly this bug was fixed in libindicator / indicator-applet 12.10.0-0ubuntu2

I have tested my original case (insert a table, then menus are grayed out) on my fully up to date system, which apparently (according to the software store) includes these versions of libindicator / indicator-applet, and I still have the problem.

So I don't think it's fixed.

[Matt Price (matt-price)]

On Mon 17 Sep 2012 08:06:32 PM EDT, Chris Hermansen wrote:
> I see above that supposedly this bug was fixed in libindicator /
> indicator-applet 12.10.0-0ubuntu2
>
> I have tested my original case (insert a table, then menus are grayed
> out) on my fully up to date system, which apparently (according to the
> software store) includes these versions of libindicator / indicator-
> applet, and I still have the problem.
>
> So I don't think it's fixed.
>

did you restart gnome/unity? I think those libraries will only reload
if you restart the X server.

[Chris Hermansen (c-hermansen)]

Matt Price asks if I restarted gnome/unity.

It turns out that was a good question. I rebooted the machine and all seems to work as expected.

Wooooooooooooooohoooooooooooooooooooooo! Congratulations!

[William (bthomas-akld)]

I get an issue with lo 3.6.2.2 writer with up to date 12.10. If from writer open a recent documents item and then open recent documents again on a second document. The window for the second document has no menu. Could this be related to or a side effect of the above "fix"

[Chris Hermansen (c-hermansen)]

i noticed something like this yesterday but have not been able to create a
repeatable test case

Chris Hermansen · <email address hidden>

C'est ma façon de parler.
On Oct 16, 2012 4:45 AM, "William" <email address hidden> wrote:

> I get an issue with lo 3.6.2.2 writer with up to date 12.10. If from
> writer open a recent documents item and then open recent documents again
> on a second document. The window for the second document has no menu.
> Could this be related to or a side effect of the above "fix"
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to a
> duplicate bug report (1047496).
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1045372
>
> Title:
> libreoffice unity menu bars greyed out after opening any dialog or
> switching window
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/indicator-applet/+bug/1045372/+subscriptions
>

[Wolf Rogner (war-rsb)]

The menu does not even appear sometimes (just the LibreOffice text in upper left corner)

Going to launcher (Alt-WindowKey or Alt-Cmd) and selecting LibreOffice (calc in my case) reveals the menu.

However, they sometimes don't react to menu selection even though enabled.

Conclusion: There is something wrong with unity integration

[Allison Karlitskaya (desrt)]

@#21: that is a different bug. This bug is fixed.

[Wolf Rogner (war-rsb)]

"This bug is fixed" says who.

But sure, if you insist, I'll open a new one.

[Allison Karlitskaya (desrt)]

> "This bug is fixed" says who.

"who" is the person who found the source of the problem (me) and the person who fixed it (currently sitting across the table from me).

> But sure, if you insist, I'll open a new one.

It's possible that the issue that you are describing is bug 1064962.

[Wolf Rogner (war-rsb)]

My dearest appologies.

From the description of the bug it seemed to be my primary issue.
Turns out #1064962 describes the issue more accurately.

I should have read the release notes in advance (which I usually do)

Cheers to you and the guy across the table

[Allison Karlitskaya (desrt)]

No worries. I've done the same. :)