openoffice fails to start if scim is the default GTK_IM_MODULE

[Douglas Liu]

Ubuntu version: edgy
openoffice.org version: 2.0.4-0ubuntu4 (edgy updates)
scim version: 1.4.4-4ubuntu6 (edgy)
language pack: zh_TW (probably irrelevant)

When I try to start openoffice, the splash screen shows and disappears after 2-3 seconds. This situation is always reproducible on my laptop.

The output of openoffice is:
$ openoffice

** (process:9893): WARNING **: Unknown error forking main binary / abnormal early exit ...

The problem goes away if scim-bridge is configured.
(set GTK_IME_MODULE="scim-bridge" in /etc/X11/xinit/xinput.d/zh_TW)

[HeresJohnny (eitel-john)]

I can verify that this problem also happens in the Feisty beta with OpenOffice 2.2. I set up OOo, including Quickstarter icon, and was good to go, could open and close the program without issues. I set up SCIM after this (with Korean language pack) by installing language support (using add/remove) and adding Korean packs through the GUI. After setting this up (where SCIM icon displays in system tray), the quickstarter icon disappeared and I was unable to launch OOo either graphically or through terminal; terminal gave me the same output as what is listed above. I will attempt the scim-bridge workaround and see what happens.

[Alexander Hunziker (alex-hunziker)]

i think this must absolutely be fixed before the release of feisty. openoffice is a very central component, and scim is installed by default, so this concerns many users i think.

questions to the reporter/commenter: are you using an ATI graphics adapter with the fglrx driver? this somehow seems to influence the problem as well.

[Douglas Liu (mail-douglas)]

Yes, I'm using fglrx driver for ATI.
here's the output of my fglrxinfo.

$ fglrxinfo
display: :0.0 screen: 0
OpenGL vendor string: ATI Technologies Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: MOBILITY RADEON 9700 Generic
OpenGL version string: 2.0.6011 (8.28.8)

I can also confirm that my other desktop which uses an Nvidia graphic card (and nvidia driver) does not have the same problem I'm having with my ATI graphics card laptop.

thanks for your help !

[HeresJohnny (eitel-john)]

In the Feisty beta, I elected to install the proprietary ATI driver rather than the fglrx driver, but I'm still experiencing the same issue. It's weird because I had this problem in Dapper 64-bit, it went away in Edgy 64-bit, and now reappears in Feisty 32-bit beta. When I install Feisty over the weekend, I plan to use the open-source driver (so's I can use eyecandy) and I'll see if it persists.

I must say that as happy as I am to be using Ubuntu, this issue is pretty serious. I don't think you can have default packages that crash other default packages. In general, I'd like to suggest that more attention be paid to supporting installation of alternate input methods, and having those IME's be legible to people viewing e-mails for example with a Mac or Windows computer.

[Alexander Hunziker (alex-hunziker)]

the ATI proprietary driver *IS* fglrx.

I agree though that this bug is unacceptable :-)

[HeresJohnny (eitel-john)]

Umm, oops? I know I went through the new 'restricted-drivers' module to
install the ATI proprietary driver. This module wasn't in previous versions
of Ubuntu, so I thought they were different... <wipes egg off face>
Thanks for the heads-up!

On 4/18/07, Alexander Hunziker <email address hidden> wrote:
>
> the ATI proprietary driver *IS* fglrx.
>
> I agree though that this bug is unacceptable :-)
>
> --
> openoffice fails to start if scim is the default GTK_IM_MODULE
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/80551
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

[G. Wang (ek-lem)]

Thanks, this solves my problem. This is still an issue in the new Feisty. Probably an upstream problem that no one is working on now.

[xbx (xavierb)]

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/scim/+bug/111174

with a pair of stack traces.
also affects "f-spot".

[xbx (xavierb)]

in scim bug tracker, there is this similar looking bug:
[ 1618699 ] Firefox does not start when GTK_IM_MODULE=scim
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1618699&group_id=108454&atid=650539

it says:
> This should be due to weak symbol conflicts between different versions of
> libstdc++ libs.
>
> The workaround you suggest is probably the easiest one.
> You could also try using scim-bridge's gtk immodule instead.
>
> If you don't do so already you may also want to try configuring your
> scim build with --enable-ld-version-script, but this is not guaranteed
> to fix such symbol conflicts.

[Ming Hua (minghua)]

On Mon, Apr 30, 2007 at 07:04:30AM -0000, xbx wrote:
> in scim bug tracker, there is this similar looking bug:
> [ 1618699 ] Firefox does not start when GTK_IM_MODULE=scim
> http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1618699&group_id=108454&atid=650539

No, that is a completely different bug. That bug only happens when you
use scim in an application linked to libstdc++5, such as the official
firefox binary from mozilla.org, or acroread from adobe.com.

That problem is reported in Ubuntu as well, for example bug #39026.

> it says:
> > This should be due to weak symbol conflicts between different versions of
> > libstdc++ libs.
> >
> > The workaround you suggest is probably the easiest one.
> > You could also try using scim-bridge's gtk immodule instead.
> >
> > If you don't do so already you may also want to try configuring your
> > scim build with --enable-ld-version-script, but this is not guaranteed
> > to fix such symbol conflicts.

As said, this option doesn't guarantee to fix symbol collision. And
Debian/Ubuntu doesn't use it.

Ming
2007.05.09

[Alexander Hunziker (alex-hunziker)]

Unfortunately, there seems to be no activity in order to fix this. If I'm not mistaken, mostly everybody using a fairly recent ATI graphics card is experiencing this bug, at least for systems where SCIM is installed.

So far, the easiest workaround that I have found is to call the applications with the environment variable GTK_IM_MODULE set to "xim". In the case for OpenOffice, it's very easy to change the startup script (/usr/bin/ooffice) - just add "GTK_IM_MODULE=xim " in front of the last line. For applications like f-spot or Gizmo Project that also suffer from this bug, one can create a startup script that changes the variable before launching the program.

[Ming Hua (minghua)]

On Tue, May 15, 2007 at 09:24:53AM -0000, Alexander Hunziker wrote:
>
> So far, the easiest workaround that I have found is to call the
> applications with the environment variable GTK_IM_MODULE set to "xim".

Another thing worth testing is to set GTK_IM_MODULE to "scim-bridge".
You need to have related packages installed though, I believe
scim-bridge-client-gtk (and maybe scim-bridge-agent).

> In the case for OpenOffice, it's very easy to change the startup script
> (/usr/bin/ooffice) - just add "GTK_IM_MODULE=xim " in front of the last
> line. For applications like f-spot or Gizmo Project that also suffer
> from this bug, one can create a startup script that changes the variable
> before launching the program.

This is very curious. My understanding about Gizmo is that it's a
close source application which uses GTK. So the problem of using
GTK_IM_MODULE=scim crashes gizmo should be bug #2246, the weak symbol
conflict between libstdc++5 and libstdc++6. There is even a bug
reported for this, bug #35290, but I couldn't get more information from
the original reporter.

Does OpenOffice and F-spot by any means use libstdc++5? I am assuming
you are talking about the openoffice.org and f-spot packages in Ubuntu
here, instead of the binaries downloaded from http://www.openoffice.org/,
for example.

Ming
2007.05.15

[HeresJohnny (eitel-john)]

Update on this problem from my end:
I did a clean install (eliminating my Windows partition; I was dual-booting)
of Feisty 32-bit when it was released, and followed the SCIM instructions
outlined in the community documentation at
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SCIM. I believe I set up my Feisty beta
install with instructions I had used previously from
http://www.mrbass.org/linux/ubuntu/scim/. After configuring the fresh
install in this way, I have had no problems and everything in my system
works great. Happy, happy, happy! Joy, joy, joy!

Maybe the community documentation is a good workaround. I know there are
many different instructions floating around for people trying to use SCIM,
especially for CJK input. Those instructions may often times 'work', but
introduce conflicts later on with other scripts you set up (in my case, I
put together a couple of scripts to enable Beryl; when I removed those, I
was no longer able to use OOo). The community doc is a simple, elegant,
non-scripted solution, and now SCIM works in every application (with the
mrbass.org solution, SCIM did not work for KDE apps such as BibleTime or
Amarok). My two cents, for what it's worth.

On 5/16/07, Ming Hua <email address hidden> wrote:
>
> On Tue, May 15, 2007 at 09:24:53AM -0000, Alexander Hunziker wrote:
> >
> > So far, the easiest workaround that I have found is to call the
> > applications with the environment variable GTK_IM_MODULE set to "xim".
>
> Another thing worth testing is to set GTK_IM_MODULE to "scim-bridge".
> You need to have related packages installed though, I believe
> scim-bridge-client-gtk (and maybe scim-bridge-agent).
>
> > In the case for OpenOffice, it's very easy to change the startup script
> > (/usr/bin/ooffice) - just add "GTK_IM_MODULE=xim " in front of the last
> > line. For applications like f-spot or Gizmo Project that also suffer
> > from this bug, one can create a startup script that changes the variable
> > before launching the program.
>
> This is very curious. My understanding about Gizmo is that it's a
> close source application which uses GTK. So the problem of using
> GTK_IM_MODULE=scim crashes gizmo should be bug #2246, the weak symbol
> conflict between libstdc++5 and libstdc++6. There is even a bug
> reported for this, bug #35290, but I couldn't get more information from
> the original reporter.
>
> Does OpenOffice and F-spot by any means use libstdc++5? I am assuming
> you are talking about the openoffice.org and f-spot packages in Ubuntu
> here, instead of the binaries downloaded from http://www.openoffice.org/,
> for example.
>
> Ming
> 2007.05.15
>
> --
> openoffice fails to start if scim is the default GTK_IM_MODULE
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/80551
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

[Alexander Hunziker (alex-hunziker)]

Ming Hua: the use of scim-bridge of course is the best option. To begin with, on the homepage (http://www.scim-im.org/projects/scim_bridge) is stated that it has been created to circumvent this problem. I don't really understand what exactly *IS* the problem, if somebody feels like explaining what a "C++ ABI transition" is, I'd be happy to listen... So, the file /usr/bin/ooffice can be changed to:

#!/bin/sh
export OOO_EXTRA_ARG=''
GTK_IM_MODULE=scim-bridge /usr/lib/openoffice/program/ooqstart "$@"

HeresJonny: so you are using OpenOffice + SCIM without special tuning and it won't crash? Do you use ATI's fglrx on top of that? Is your system configured to use plain SCIM or scim-bridge?

[Alexander Hunziker (alex-hunziker)]

I *think* the pattern is the following. Please everyone read and verify :-) My hypothesis is that it's always the same bug, not two bugs.

* Gizmo: linked to libstdc++.so.5, while SCIM is linked to libstc++.so.6, so this is the "classical" bug that can be circumvented by using scim-bridge that uses sockets to communicate with the program. Whatever that means... :-)

* f-spot and Openoffice are linked to the same version of libstdc++, yet they crash. Now here's my assumption: they use both SCIM *and* some OpenGL routines. f-spot uses OpenGL for it's slideshow and OpenOffice I guess uses it for some of the drawing routines. Now, it was observed that ATI's fglrx seems to be affecting the issue as well. And guess which libstdc++ it is linked to...? It's libstd++.so.5. In short I think if programs trigger use of certain routines from the ATI graphics driver *and* use scim, they crash, so, it's the same bug as the one crashing applications that are simply linked to libstdc++.so.5.

[HeresJohnny (eitel-john)]

Hello Alex,

Your hypothesis sounds good and takes care of all the problems that we
have seen with this bug. I'll try using F-spot's slideshow feature and
see if I can trigger the crash. According to everything we've seen so
far, though, my SCIM should be crashing, and yet it isn't. I installed
fglrx so I could set up Beryl, and I haven't experienced problems in
switching over. If I need to type in Korean, I can: 너무 이상하다.
(translation: very strange). In fact, I just tried the F-spot slideshow
and it neither it nor SCIM crashed. Perhaps I just set it up in the
right order? Used the right set of instructions this time? I don't
know, but I'll take working over not working anyday.

Cheers,
John

On Thu, 2007-05-17 at 12:51 +0000, Alexander Hunziker wrote:
> I *think* the pattern is the following. Please everyone read and verify
> :-) My hypothesis is that it's always the same bug, not two bugs.
>
> * Gizmo: linked to libstdc++.so.5, while SCIM is linked to
> libstc++.so.6, so this is the "classical" bug that can be circumvented
> by using scim-bridge that uses sockets to communicate with the program.
> Whatever that means... :-)
>
> * f-spot and Openoffice are linked to the same version of libstdc++, yet
> they crash. Now here's my assumption: they use both SCIM *and* some
> OpenGL routines. f-spot uses OpenGL for it's slideshow and OpenOffice I
> guess uses it for some of the drawing routines. Now, it was observed
> that ATI's fglrx seems to be affecting the issue as well. And guess
> which libstdc++ it is linked to...? It's libstd++.so.5. In short I think
> if programs trigger use of certain routines from the ATI graphics driver
> *and* use scim, they crash, so, it's the same bug as the one crashing
> applications that are simply linked to libstdc++.so.5.
>

[HeresJohnny (eitel-john)]

Yes, I'm using SCIM with OOo without any special tuning. And I'm using
ATI's drivers, too. I've never heard of SCIM-bridge, and as far as I
know, I'm not using it. Does that help?

On Thu, 2007-05-17 at 12:24 +0000, Alexander Hunziker wrote:
> Ming Hua: the use of scim-bridge of course is the best option. To begin
> with, on the homepage (http://www.scim-im.org/projects/scim_bridge) is
> stated that it has been created to circumvent this problem. I don't
> really understand what exactly *IS* the problem, if somebody feels like
> explaining what a "C++ ABI transition" is, I'd be happy to listen... So,
> the file /usr/bin/ooffice can be changed to:
>
> #!/bin/sh
> export OOO_EXTRA_ARG=''
> GTK_IM_MODULE=scim-bridge /usr/lib/openoffice/program/ooqstart "$@"
>
> HeresJonny: so you are using OpenOffice + SCIM without special tuning
> and it won't crash? Do you use ATI's fglrx on top of that? Is your
> system configured to use plain SCIM or scim-bridge?
>

[Alexander Hunziker (alex-hunziker)]

So, we aren't any further then. Some, it seems, can use SCIM + fglrx + OOo without crashes. Some can't. What's the hidden variable?

[Ming Hua (minghua)]

Alexander Hunziker said:
>
> What's the hidden variable?

Well, it's not exactly hidden if it's wriiten in the bug title. If GTK_IM_MODULE is set to scim, fglrx + OO.o will crash; If GTK_IM_MODULE is set to xim, or scim-bridge (need scim-bridge-agent and scim-bridge-client-gtk packages installed), things should be okay.

[Alexander Hunziker (alex-hunziker)]

What I meant was: HeresJohnny claims to have OOo+SCIM+fglrx *not* crashing without having used any tricks like scim_bridge or whatever. So why then is it crashing for others (me...)?

[DarkMageZ (darkmagez)]

workarounds are a solution in the short term, but bugs like this should be fixed. instead of expecting everyone who runs into it to beable to find the workaround.

[Douglas Liu (mail-douglas)]

well, just curious.

I thought HeresJohnny was experiencing crashes with OO.o+SCIM+fglrx back on
early Apr.

What did you do to make the issue go away ?
If possible, please share us your solutions.

thanks

On 5/20/07, Alexander Hunziker <email address hidden> wrote:
>
> So, we aren't any further then. Some, it seems, can use SCIM + fglrx +
> OOo without crashes. Some can't. What's the hidden variable?
>
> --
> openoffice fails to start if scim is the default GTK_IM_MODULE
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/80551
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

--
--
My blog: http://www.douglas.tw

[HeresJohnny (eitel-john)]

I did, and it was with the Feisty beta version on a dual-boot system. I
wiped the Windows partition and did a clean install of the Feisty normal
release and it's been fine. All I did was taken from the community
documentation at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SCIM. After enabling
language support and installing the Korean language packages, I put these
two lines in through terminal:

sudo apt-get install scim-qtimm
im-switch -z en_GB -s scim

And did a reboot, though they say all you need to do is logout and login
again. As I said, I've had no problems with crashing using this method, and
SCIM works in every application, even the KDE apps I use (I have GNOME). As
far as fglrx is concerned, I didn't do anything special there, either;
simply did everything through the Restricted Drivers Manager. I now even
have Beryl going and still no problems with SCIM at all in any app. I don't
even know myself why I don't have crashes anymore, and I'm not
complaining... ;-)

I've not had to deal with GTK_IM_MODULE or anything fancy like that. Does
that help?

On 5/20/07, Douglas Liu <email address hidden> wrote:
>
> well, just curious.
>
> I thought HeresJohnny was experiencing crashes with OO.o+SCIM+fglrx back
> on
> early Apr.
>
> What did you do to make the issue go away ?
> If possible, please share us your solutions.
>
> thanks
>
> On 5/20/07, Alexander Hunziker <email address hidden> wrote:
> >
> > So, we aren't any further then. Some, it seems, can use SCIM + fglrx +
> > OOo without crashes. Some can't. What's the hidden variable?
> >
> > --
> > openoffice fails to start if scim is the default GTK_IM_MODULE
> > https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/80551
> > You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> > of the bug.
> >
>
>
> --
> --
> My blog: http://www.douglas.tw
>
> --
> openoffice fails to start if scim is the default GTK_IM_MODULE
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/80551
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

[Douglas Liu (mail-douglas)]

Dear HeresJohnny.

As a matter of facts, this does help.

I upgraded my system to feisty previously, but openoffice doesn't seem to be
working when not using scim-bridge.
After I saw your mail, I decided to re-install scim and remove scim-bridge.
now I can confirm, on a ATI (fglrx) feisty installation, scim works fine
with openoffice, (and f-spot as well, though I don't use it very often, but
I can confirm the program do start now.)

I can't recall exactly the procedures of my attempt.
but roughly the following.
1. upgrade to feisty
2. apply all updates
3. apt-get remove --purge scim-bridge scim (and some other scim related
package perhaps)
4. apt-get install scim (and all those you have removed in step 3, except
scim-bridge)

These steps will reset your xinput scripts to default, which is good for
most people, if you used scim-bridge before, the configuration should be
gone now.

This fixes my problem.
Though I'm not completely sure the re-installation is required or just
somebody fixed it and committed at the right time. :D
any way, thanks.

regards

On 5/23/07, HeresJohnny <email address hidden> wrote:
>
> I did, and it was with the Feisty beta version on a dual-boot system. I
> wiped the Windows partition and did a clean install of the Feisty normal
> release and it's been fine. All I did was taken from the community
> documentation at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SCIM. After enabling
> language support and installing the Korean language packages, I put these
> two lines in through terminal:
>
> sudo apt-get install scim-qtimm
> im-switch -z en_GB -s scim
>
> And did a reboot, though they say all you need to do is logout and login
> again. As I said, I've had no problems with crashing using this method,
> and
> SCIM works in every application, even the KDE apps I use (I have
> GNOME). As
> far as fglrx is concerned, I didn't do anything special there, either;
> simply did everything through the Restricted Drivers Manager. I now even
> have Beryl going and still no problems with SCIM at all in any app. I
> don't
> even know myself why I don't have crashes anymore, and I'm not
> complaining... ;-)
>
> I've not had to deal with GTK_IM_MODULE or anything fancy like that. Does
> that help?
>
> On 5/20/07, Douglas Liu <email address hidden> wrote:
> >
> > well, just curious.
> >
> > I thought HeresJohnny was experiencing crashes with OO.o+SCIM+fglrx back
> > on
> > early Apr.
> >
> > What did you do to make the issue go away ?
> > If possible, please share us your solutions.
> >
> > thanks
> >
> > On 5/20/07, Alexander Hunziker <email address hidden> wrote:
> > >
> > > So, we aren't any further then. Some, it seems, can use SCIM + fglrx +
> > > OOo without crashes. Some can't. What's the hidden variable?
> > >
> > > --
> > > openoffice fails to start if scim is the default GTK_IM_MODULE
> > > https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/80551
> > > You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> > > of the bug.
> > >
> >
> >
> > --
> > --
> > My blog: http://www.douglas.tw
> >
> > --
> > openoffice fails to start if scim is the default GTK_IM_MODULE
> > https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/80551
> > You received this bug n...

[Alexander Hunziker (alex-hunziker)]

confirm uninstalling and then reinstalling scim works for f-spot and openoffice. i have gizmo crashing since though :-(

[Alexander Hunziker (alex-hunziker)]

Sorry, i was too fast. After rebooting the machine, the error is back. So un- and then reinstalling does *not* help in my case.

[Sébastien Valette (sebastien-valette)]

HI!

I experience the same error message when launching openoffice. Note that the computer has no ati graphic card. My xorg driver is "i810".

setting GTK_IM_MODULE to xim or scim-bridge does not fix the issue.

[Ming Hua (minghua)]

On Sun, Jun 24, 2007 at 01:43:52PM -0000, Sébastien Valette wrote:
>
> I experience the same error message when launching openoffice. Note that
> the computer has no ati graphic card. My xorg driver is "i810".

Then it should be an unrelated bug, please file a seperate bug against
openoffice.org with more details.

> setting GTK_IM_MODULE to xim or scim-bridge does not fix the issue.

The error message mentioned in the bug description is rather general.
Are you sure your problem is input method related?

Ming
2007.06.28

[arm-c (arickmcniel)]

I will not belabour the point that the issue is with the ATI video card. The simple fix for me was to edit the last line of the soffice.sh

         /etc/openoffice/soffice.sh

File contents:

# configuration file to set up some environment variables for OOo

# File locking; possible values are:
# - yes: enable file locking unconditionally
# - no: disable file locking
# - auto: enable file locking, when the document is found on a nfs share
# If the environment variable SAL_ENABLE_FILE_LOCKING is set,
# the setting if ENABLE_FILE_LOCKING has no effect.

FILE_LOCKING=auto

# OpenGL support; may cause trouble with the restricted nvidia and fglrx
# drivers; possible values are:
# - yes: enable OpenGL support unconditionally
# - no: disable OpenGL support.
# - auto: only enable OpenGL support, if not running with the restricted
# nvidia and fglrx drivers.
# If the environment variable SAL_NOOPENGL is set,
# the setting if OPENGL_SUPPORT has no effect.

OPENGL_SUPPORT=auto

Fixed it for me in OOo. Thanks for all the clues to the real issue here.

[Brunus (bruno-vasta-free)]

Thanks arm-c !
Switching OPENGL_SUPPORt to "auto" in the /etc/openoffice/soffice.sh works for me too.

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

The value of OPENGL_SUPPORT is "no" in /etc/openoffice/soffice.sh in Gutsy Gibbon, so perhaps this is resolved.

[Bono Lv (bonolv)]

my ubuntu 7.04 have a ATI(fglrx) + scim environment .
setting GTK_IM_MODULE to scim-bridge fix the issue.

THX

[Rolf Leggewie (r0lf)]

Thank you for reporting. I think this may be fixed in 1.4.9 which is about to be released in Karmic. Please verify.

https://launchpad.net/~r0lf/+archive/hardy/+sourcepub/678492/+listing-archive-extra

[Rolf Leggewie (r0lf)]

It looks like nobody is experiencing this anymore. Closing the remaining tasks. Please reopen with more information if you still experience this.