Ubuntu
openoffice.org package

OpenOffice 2.2 crashes the machine with File->Open

Bug #117480 reported by Ace Suares on 2007-05-29

This bug report is a duplicate of: Bug #113679: xorg freezes when running openoffice. Edit Remove

Affects		Status	Importance	Assigned to	Milestone
	openoffice.org (Ubuntu)	Confirmed	Undecided	Unassigned

Bug Description

Binary package hint: openoffice.org

openoffice.org-calc 2.2.0-1ubuntu3

funny: dpkg -l openoffice.org gives:
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Installed/Config-files/Unpacked/Failed-config/Half-installed
|/ Err?=(none)/Hold/Reinst-required/X=both-problems (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name Version Description
+++-=========================-=========================-==================================================================
un openoffice.org <none> (no description available)

The situation:
Kubuntu Feisty. Fresh install since 2 weeks. Same things happened with Dapper, though. Triplehead with Xinerama. Skype installed and lots of other stuff from universe and multiverse. Sshfs installed and two subdirs of ~ are mounted that way, but those are not the ones I use for OO documents (but for Pictures and Music).

The problem: Starting OO, then File->Open or File->Save As, *should* give a file open or file save as dialog, instead, nothing is shown.

The mouse can only be moved within the screen that contains OO and only within that window in that screen. The mouse moves jaggedly and especially near the edges, it is almost unresponsive (but not totally unresponsive). Clicking has no effect.

Normal KDE/X key combinations like Alt-Tab, Alt-F2, Alt-Ctrl-F1/2/3/4/5/6 can not be used anymore. The panel (taskbar, in this case) is not reachable (mouse stays inside OO window).

Remote login to terminal is possible, top or htop gives that X is consuming 99%, all other apps less then 4%.

Killing OO from remote terminal does not change the situation but the processes are gone (with -9)

Now the weirdest part. I waited some time, the screensaver kicked in. This is set to kick in after 3 minutes, and to lock after another 120 seconds.

When touching the keyboard or mouse it is expected to see the screensaver password dialog. Now get this: instead, the KDE login screen is shown in Xinerama between the left and right screen - the middle screen is entirely 'skipped'. Moving the mouse to the edge of the left screen immediately shows it on the right screen; the middle screen is obviously no part of the newly restarted X (and it's unclear why X restarted).

After loggin in, using alt-backspace to restart X, crashed the entire machine. The left screen displayed garbage, the right screen looked normal. My remote terminal session was frozen (maybe even since the screensaver kicked in). The middle screen still showed OO !!!

I tried the power button, but that didn't work. Power cycle worked but unfortunately a lot of ext3 journal messages. After that, the 3-screen xinerama worked as it has always worked.

The effect:
I just set up 10 desktops and configured all of them to have certain apps open. I named all desktops. I really didn't want to alt-ctrl-del out of this, or use alt-backspace. After it did that itself (!) I lost all the work of configuring the desktops. and I had just one desktop with some apps that I opened 3 days ago (or so). So this really badly influenced my workflow.

I choose Kubuntu because it is stable and don't crash so badly as Windows. But these things as I described happen now once a month, still far better then any windows experience I had but I am not happy with it. I was in IRC on #kubuntu, #kubuntu-devel, and #openoffice, to no avail.

I hope some one can try and get this - is it a triplehead problem ? Is there a special group that does multihead support ?

Cheers, keep up the good work,

ace suares