LibreOffice Base can’t find Java installation—does not work

[Johan Van Hoorde]

Since I work with Ubuntu 12.10 I have serious problems with LibreOffice. I already reported bugs regarding the menu line and regarding the use of files with smb. This one is the most critical though. It regards the Database app of LO (Base). This one is very critical, since I cannot use Database at all, nor for working with existing databases (created in LO before in Ubuntu environment 12.04 or earlier), nor for creating new databases.
I don't really understand the reason, but from the error messages it seems that the application does not find Java running, hence it could be linked to the OpenJDK Jave of Icedtea Java or any other Java-tool used by the standard Ubuntu OS.
I will describe to cases: (a) using an existing database with Base and (b) trying to create a new database.

(a) using an existing database. Open LO, choose Database. It opens the Window 'guided creation database'. I choose 'open existing database' , then Open, then search one of the existing databases with the extention odb. The database opens with a grey screen. When I try to move to 'tables', I get an error message, stating that it is impossible to create a connection to the database and that it is impossible to find a Java installation with the advice: verify your installation (see attachment 1, error message in Italian). When clicking on the button 'more' (più) one gets two new error messages. The first one repeats the general message that it is impossible to establish a connection (see attachment 2, message Italian), the second one repeats the message that no Java installation has been found but adds 'Stato SQL: HY000' (see attachment 3). No tables are shown. One can see queries, forms and reports created before, but of course one cannot open these items, since they cannot connect to the data in the table(s).

(b) creating a new database. Open LO, choose the button Database. It opens the window 'guided creation database'. I choose 'create a new database. Push the button 'avanti' (next) then I confirm the default choices, register the database and open the database in order to modify. I can now give a name to the database and save it. Then the database opens, immediately showing an error message, which is exactly the same as the first message shown in (a) with exactly the same underlying messages. These three messages are her included as attachments 4, 5 and 6.

I wonder whether other users have the same problem. I would like to know whether there are work-arounds available (e.g.installing 'real' Java) and whether it would be better to downgrade to Ubuntu 12.04 LTS which was really stable and satisfactory. Quantal has made LibreOffice almost completely unreliable for professional use. In order be able to continue to use my databases I need to use another computer with Windows XP [ :-(( ] with LibreOffice 3.5.6.2 ( I don't upgrade the LO package because I don't want to run the risk of not being able to open my databases on any platform anymore).

The windows computer I referred to has a Ubuntu 12.10 dual boot version installed alongside. This Ubuntu installation gives exactly the same problems, for which I think that more users could be affected by this bug.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.10
Package: libreoffice 1:3.6.2~rc2-0ubuntu4
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.5.0-22.34-generic 3.5.7.2
Uname: Linux 3.5.0-22-generic i686
ApportVersion: 2.6.1-0ubuntu10
Architecture: i386
Date: Wed Jan 23 11:09:51 2013
InstallationDate: Installed on 2012-07-11 (195 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" - Release i386 (20120423)
MarkForUpload: True
SourcePackage: libreoffice
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to quantal on 2012-10-19 (95 days ago)

[Pmladek-y (pmladek-y)]

This is the Meta issue to track most annoying bugs for the release of
LibreOffice 3.6.x releases. It helps developers to concentrate on bugs that are important for users. Also it helps users to be aware of potential problems.

If anyone wants to raise an Bug for the release, please add the Bug ID as
dependent Bug here to the Meta Bug in field "Depends on". Additionally please
leave a comment here why you think that the bug should be privileged.

See also http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Release_Criteria
and http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleasePlan

[Libreoffice-z (libreoffice-z)]

Add "Bug 48368 - CRASH closing IDE"

[Cno (cno)]

Add
  Bug 48377 [EDITING] Indicator when dragging a row has changed
and
  Bug 48333 Path changed to <home> (as defined in the users options) with File > Save As, File>Template>Edit, ...

[Pmladek-y (pmladek-y)]

Add bug 48946: Current master build can't find JRE on Windows.

[Libreoffice-z (libreoffice-z)]

Add "Bug 49291 - CRASH at menu Tools - Macros"

[Cno (cno)]

add Bug 49340 - CRASH closing window Edit > Changes > Accept or Reject with ESC

[Libreoffice-z (libreoffice-z)]

Add "Bug 49808 - FILEOPEN MSO2007 .pptx background missing or wrong color", what makes LibO more or less unusable fro MSO2007.pptx

[Libreoffice-z (libreoffice-z)]

Add "Bug 50035 - CONFIGURATION: During initialization of Extensions several CRASHes until first launch will be successful"

[Korrawit Pruegsanusak (detective-conan-1412)]

CC'ing dev list as it seems to be missing

[Korrawit Pruegsanusak (detective-conan-1412)]

Adding:
* bug 49806 as it is a pptx import regression in windows
* bug 48243 as it is a regression - sdext/ extensions not work in windows

[Libreoffice-z (libreoffice-z)]

Add "Bug 50221 - FILESAVE particular .xls (MSO97) will CRASH". Currently only reproducible with 1 document, but might be serious.

[Libreoffice-z (libreoffice-z)]

Add "Bug 50344 - Basic Macro will not run because of missing Java", it seems that Macro execution is completely broken

[Korrawit Pruegsanusak (detective-conan-1412)]

Adding bug 50137, LibO close after creating user profile. A recent regression on Windows.

[Libreoffice-z (libreoffice-z)]

Add "Bug 50679 - EDITING Copying cell(s) with conditional CRASH when paste" - but Markus is already involved, no panic ;-)

[Pmladek-y (pmladek-y)]

Add bug 50783: Can't create database or access table in Base. It makes Base almost unusable.

[Libreoffice-z (libreoffice-z)]

Add "Bug 50910 - Impossible to access particular spreadsheet based database table"

[Libreoffice-z (libreoffice-z)]

Add "Bug 50911 - FILEOPEN impossible for any existing.ods"

[t (thardeck-deactivatedaccount)]

Add Bug 51040 - Calc crashes if zoom to "Page Width" is used under "Page Preview"

[timur (ba.timur)]

Can you please explain the relation between this bug and Bug 37361 - LibreOffice 3.5 most annoying bugs?
Should unresolved bugs from Bug 37361 at some point (which?) be added here?

[Libreoffice-z (libreoffice-z)]

@Timur:
This is no place for discussions. If you have a question concerning proceeding ask on <email address hidden>!
Short answer here: This is for MAB what can't be fixed in 3.5, but please shift NO bug between these tracking Bugs. Anything else in Mailing list!

[Fabien-michel (fabien-michel)]

Add #40907 : concurrent access to AFP shared files impossible - total lock on file

[Libreoffice-z (libreoffice-z)]

Add "Bug 51231 - UI: Slide thumbnail overlay "start presentation, disable slide, copy slide" position depends on slides pane scroll slider position and mouse way", makes slide pane more or less unusable.

[Libreoffice-z (libreoffice-z)]

Add "Bug 51278 - Opening Report fails with Error Message", limits usability of Database very much.

[Libreoffice-z (libreoffice-z)]

Add "Bug 51326 - CRASH when FILESAVE particular document with CHART"

[Libreoffice-z (libreoffice-z)]

Add "Bug 34467 - FORMATTING Fit to Frame for text boxes is broken" due 2 duplicates

[Libreoffice-z (libreoffice-z)]

Add "Bug 51368 - EDITING: CRASH when Merge Cells with "move contents" and first of merged Cells is involved in calculation"

[Fabien-michel (fabien-michel)]

Bug 40907 : the bug is very annoying for corporate use on mac network

[Wugs (wugs)]

(In reply to comment #26)
> Bug 40907 : the bug is very annoying for corporate use on mac network

I agree completely. However, bug 40907 is already included in our "LibreOffice 3.5 most annoying bugs" list (bug 37361), and this is sufficient and adaequate. At the moment, the present (3.6) bugs list should contain only bugs which are *new* in LibreOffice 3.6. If bug 40907 will not be resolved during the 3.5 maintenance phase, we will move it, just like all remaining (open) 3.5 bugs, to this (3.6) bug list, so there really is no need to include a bug in both lists.

(No offence -- this is just an attempt to explain our current practice for anybody who does not know it yet!)

[Björn Michaelsen (bjoern-michaelsen)]

Adding 51324 as it is:
a) a crasher
b) although it is a heisenbug, we have a decent reproduction scenario
c) it disturbs all forms of automated testing

[Korrawit Pruegsanusak (detective-conan-1412)]

Adding bug 51179 - cannot save as ppt. Because it's a regression, and I think we can't live with this bug.

[Johan Van Hoorde (johan-van-hoorde)]

Only a few moments ago I discovered that this bug (which I couldn't find amongst the bugs in launchpad) is included in the list of LibreOffice 3.6 most annoying bugs, and seems to be resolved.
see: https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=44446
(see attacment 7)

Can anybody here tell me what I have to do on my system to get the Database app of LibreOffice working as it should?

[Johan Van Hoorde (johan-van-hoorde)]

@ Adolfo: your summary is indeed a better description of the nature of the problem. Thanks!

[Jmadero-dev (jmadero-dev)]

Added Bug 61186 as our printer settings (file - printer settings) are essentially a useless set of options until this is fixed

[Libreoffice-z (libreoffice-z)]

I add "Bug 61339 - FILEOPEN LibO 3572 .ods: CONDITIONAL FORMATTING type 'if cell value' without style type, UI Localization related", serious Version Interoperability issue

[Jr-n (jr-n)]

Nominating bug 55814: condition for hidden section gets lost

This is an often used functionality in templates, which should be available in the actual LibO version for productive use. Therefore I ask for fixing this in LibO 3.6.x.

[Joren-libreoffice (joren-libreoffice)]

I nominate "Bug 55715 - FILESAVE: Writer creates corrupt docx when a chart is copied from calc" because this is a common used function and results in data loss.

[itskieran (itskieran)]

Bug 61903 - FORMATTING: entering 3/4/13 into a date formatted cell is changed to fraction 3/4 and /13

This bug prevents typing in a date as 3/4/13 changes to ¾/13 (three-quarters sign then /13 - happens as soon as the second forward slash is entered).

[Vstuart-foote (vstuart-foote)]

(In reply to comment #208)
> Bug 61903 - FORMATTING: entering 3/4/13 into a date formatted cell is
> changed to fraction 3/4 and /13
>
> This bug prevents typing in a date as 3/4/13 changes to ¾/13 (three-quarters
> sign then /13 - happens as soon as the second forward slash is entered).

RESOLVED NOTABUG. Autocorrect feature defaults have 1/4, 1/2 and 3/4 replacements with corresponding fraction character from fontset. Autocorrect is immediately reverted with <Ctl>-Z

Alternative entry using correct date format of 03/04/13 avoids autocorrect. Or, autocorrect replacement can be eliminated by deletion of 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 entries in the Replace tab.

Possible UX enhancement to change Autocorrect function for date formatted fields, but not a MAB.

[timur (ba.timur)]

Adding Bug 38619 - Picture of type wmf is not printed correctly because it's really old, from 3.4.1, and, while not maybe common case because limited to printing WMF from Windows, still annoying.

[Petr-kraus (petr-kraus)]

I nominate "Bug 46553" Update embedded manifest on win32 builds to declare dpiAware
and
"Bug 46817" Screen font anti-aliasing does not work (Windows)
They are causing inferior rendering quality of GUI and user content on Windows.

[Cmusunbear (cmusunbear)]

[Bug 44621] With MacOSX 10.7 and later, dragging an image from the desktop to LO Writer is not possible

This is a bug so prominent that probably every single LO on Mac OS >= 10.7 user has come across and been annoyed by it. And remember that Mac folks tend to be less technical, so the fraction of Mac users creating a bugzilla account when bothered by a bug is going to be smaller than the corresponding fraction of Windows and Linux users.

[Spam35 (spam35)]

As discussed on IRC with jmadero adding #49853 to MAB. It affects many people, have several duplicates and 27 subscribers.

[Panos-v (panos-v)]

Bug 44617 causes irreversible problems (undo doesn't work) when resizing a group of shapes that use the "resize shape to fit text" option. While Drawing is not the most used function in LibreOffice, a bug causing irreversible damage to a document should be corrected in a stable version.

[Jmadero-dev (jmadero-dev)]

Added 62073 - copy/paste of a line in impress results in a change in size for bullets, ctrl + z doesn't undo the changed bullet size -- common feature, prevents high quality work

[Mihkel Tõnnov (v6lur)]

Adding back bug 62073 which was accidentally removed right after nomination.

[Thomas Thym (ungethym)]

I would like to nominate bug 40489 "PRINTING: Option Buttons and Check Boxes not printed correctly" because documents with check boxes are common in a business context and it is important that the user can TRUST LibreOffice to print documents as displayed (and not printing only half of the check boxes).
The bug exists since 2011 and (compared to OpenOffice) it is a regression.

[Jmadero-dev (jmadero-dev)]

scaling of images no longer working in 3.6 - appears to have been introduced either in 3.5.7 or 3.6.0.

Makes pdf export with scaled images useless

[Mihkel Tõnnov (v6lur)]

Adding back bug 55345 which was accidentally removed right after nomination.

[Jmadero-dev (jmadero-dev)]

Added Bug 63647

Really simple test case provided - export as a pdf and the document is useless (calc table is zoomed way into the corner, probably 1000% plus).

[Davian818 (davian818)]

Bug 49840 - XLSX FILEOPEN Text in cells is lost

Renders spreadsheet documents completely useless.

[Markus Mohrhard (moggi)]

(In reply to comment #221)
> Bug 49840 - XLSX FILEOPEN Text in cells is lost
>
> Renders spreadsheet documents completely useless.

The document is invalid according to the OOXML spec.

[timur (ba.timur)]

There are many bug reports for images in .docx. I move here Bug 52226 from MAB 4.0. I'd like also to add Bug 43641 - Image in .docx file not shown reported in 2011. Some may be duplicate, but hopefully this will at least be resolved.

[Jmadero-dev (jmadero-dev)]

Nominated 64753 - document/sheet protection is completely lost with .xlsx format which seems to be quite bad. Works fine for xls and of course ods formats

[timur (ba.timur)]

I move here Bug 46060 - Writer corrupts DOCX file containing TOC, recovery not possible with Office 2010 - from MAB 4.0.

[vossman77 (vossman77)]

I would like to nominate Bug #34957 - "table in Writer behaves strange when set option Keep with next paragraph" because it is a long standing bug and makes some of my documents look ugly!

[Jmadero-dev (jmadero-dev)]

external links to another sheet seem to be changing to a default folder with xls files.

Nominated: 57738 - at least 3 bugs reported against this issue, sum, indirect and another function affected. Results in unusable sheets

[julien2412 (serval2412-6)]

I nominate "Bug 49708 - EDITING FILESAVE Setting primary key was silently ignored" because :
- the possibility to add a primary key via UI is indeed broken
- there's no error message
- it's quite an old bug
If it's too much broken perhaps it would be better to remove this option completely.

[Michael Meeks (michael-meeks)]

propose remove: bug#58819 it looks like a reasonably normal interop. problem - arguably data-loss, but export to OOXML has plenty of similar issues; pending Miklos' input.

[Ddascalescu+freedesktop (ddascalescu+freedesktop)]

LibreCalc Bug 39936 - it has always been unnecessarily cumbersome to move rows around. Excel has a context menu option called "Insert cut cells", which I miss dearly in LibreCalc.

PS: is 3.6 still being developed? Should these bugs move to 4.x?

[Barta-c (barta-c)]

@Dan Dascalescu
it's not time yet to change the mab3.6 status to FIXED, so I'm REOPENING.

LibO 3.6.x is still under development, though is close to the end of life.

see here the release plan: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleasePlan/3.6#3.6.7_release

the last 3.6.7 release will come out in a few weeks, then after that, all the remaining 3.6.x MABs which are still reproducible on 4.0.x versions will be moved by the QA guys to the mab4.0 page

[suokunlong (suokunlong)]

I'm adding Bug 58577 because it caused my text frame lost when I save as OOXML (*.docx). It is a BLOCKER!

[suokunlong (suokunlong)]

For Bug 56960, patch is out for LibreOffice 4.1, but not in LibreOffice 3.6 list.

[Chelmite (steve-kelem)]

Bug 51453: "Equation Frame size linked to caption frame size" should be added to the list. If you have a caption that's wider than your "formula", either the caption is wrapped (possibly over several lines) to match the width of the formula or the formula is scaled to match the width of the frame containing the formula and the caption. Both of those options look horrible and there is no good workaround!

http://forum.openoffice.org/en/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=7949 shows an example of this bug.

This bug was filed in 2005!

[Chelmite (steve-kelem)]

About my last post about 51453...it's an annoying bug, but it's listed against OpenOffice at the Apache site: https://issues.apache.org/ooo/show_bug.cgi?id=51453

It still applies to LibreOffice. What's the right way to get this fixed?

[Vstuart-foote (vstuart-foote)]

(In reply to comment #235)
> About my last post about 51453...it's an annoying bug, but it's listed
> against OpenOffice at the Apache site:
> https://issues.apache.org/ooo/show_bug.cgi?id=51453

Happens to all of us who follow both projects ;-)
>
> It still applies to LibreOffice. What's the right way to get this fixed?

Just did a search, it has not been raised as an issue on the LibreOffice side.

So for starters, need a substantive write-up of the issue. The AOO issue #i51453# is a start, but you'll note it has had no substantive attention since 2005. As to being/becomming a Most Annoying Bug--that will depend on your write up and justification on use of a caption with an inserted formula object. Actually seems more a UX issue to me.

Anyhow, please make you steps to reproduce the observed behavior simple but complete.

[Pmladek-y (pmladek-y)]

(In reply to comment #235)
> About my last post about 51453...it's an annoying bug, but it's listed
> against OpenOffice at the Apache site:
> https://issues.apache.org/ooo/show_bug.cgi?id=51453
>
> It still applies to LibreOffice. What's the right way to get this fixed?

First, thanks for bringing up this problem. Please, open bug against LibreOffice in the FreeDesktop bugzilla and mention there links to original bug report. A simple link would be enough but it might speed up the things if you provide a test document and simple steps how to reproduce it.

Otherwise, I would prefer to handle this problem as a normal but. I understand that it is annoying for certain people but there are many other bugs that affect more people and are even more annoying. I think that this one does not qualify for the top priority queue.

[Lionel Elie Mamane (lionel-mamane)]

outdated install instructions: website

[Barta-c (barta-c)]

LibO 3.6.7 is out and will be the last release of the 3.6.x branch.

all the unfixed mab3.6 are actually under review before being moved to the mab4.0 page.

so, please don't add new bugs to the current meta-bug.

[Barta-c (barta-c)]

All still open 3.6 MABs have been moved to the 4.0 MAB list since the 3.6 branch reached is end of life (EOL).

changing status to CLOSED FIXED.

[Jmadero-dev (jmadero-dev)]

INCREDIBLE WORK Tommy - really we can all learn from your commitment to this project. I hate to speak for everyone but from all of QA and I'm sure all of us contributors outside of QA, THANK YOU

[Björn Michaelsen (bjoern-michaelsen)]

Upstream "Most annozing bugs" metabug is not a valid bug reference.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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