Libre office writer reports error when opening MS Word files after running recent trusty update.

[Bob Fusinato]

We have many MS word doc files that we have been accessing without error using libreoffice for years. After running trusty update on my wife's machine she is no longer able to open the files without error. There is a long delay after opening file after which a pop up dialog appears with the following message ....
"Document file 'xxxx.doc' is locked for editing by: Unknown User
   Open document read-only or open a copy of the document for editing."

Selecting "copy" results in creation of an empty file and application hangup (requiring kill -9).

Selecting "open read only" opens the file which you can save with another name. That file then opens and appears to be correct. However, there are way too many files to do this on every one. Any business would be prompted to ditch libreoffice (and possibly ubuntu) immediately.

I can access the files with my ubuntu desktop which has not been recently updated (last libreoffice update was in May of 2015). This version of libreoffice opens the exact same files without error.

Selecting the history in ubuntu software center indicates that libreoffice writer was last updated on the machine with the with the error on 10 November 2015 (3.5.7-0ubuntu7, 3.5.7-0ubuntu8).
MS word files had been opened successfully on that machine on 28 October 2015 (and possibly later)
The error was discovered 11 Nov, 2015

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.04
Package: libreoffice-core 1:4.2.8-0ubuntu3
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.16.0-53.72~14.04.1-generic 3.16.7-ckt18
Uname: Linux 3.16.0-53-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.14.1-0ubuntu3.18
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: Unity
Date: Thu Nov 12 14:35:29 2015
ExecutablePath: /usr/lib/libreoffice/program/soffice.bin
InstallationDate: Installed on 2015-02-25 (260 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 14.04.2 LTS "Trusty Tahr" - Release amd64 (20150218.1)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_US
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: libreoffice
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[penalvch (penalvch)]

Bob Fusinato, thank you for reporting this and helping make Ubuntu better.

Could you please post the example document to this report?

[Bob Fusinato (bob-fusinato)]

A sample word file for which error occurs on opening in libre office is attached to this report upon request.

[penalvch (penalvch)]

Bob Fusinato, this is not reproducible in:
apt-cache policy libreoffice-writer
libreoffice-writer:
  Installed: 1:5.0.2-0ubuntu1
  Candidate: 1:5.0.2-0ubuntu1
  Version table:
 *** 1:5.0.2-0ubuntu1 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ wily/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

You may want to consider using the LibreOffice PPA while waiting for a fix in the version in the default repository > https://launchpad.net/~libreoffice .

[Björn Michaelsen (bjoern-michaelsen)]

Not reproducable here, likely a problem with your local setup and unrelated to the LibreOffice update.
See https://ask.libreoffice.org/en/question/33231/file-locked-in-libreoffice-no-lock-file-to-delete/ for some more info on locked files.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for libreoffice (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]