openoffice: Error forking (crash)

[gururise]

Binary package hint: openoffice.org

Attempting to start an openoffice application (eg. 'oowriter' or 'oobase') consistently results in the following error:

Error forking '/usr/lib/openoffice/program//soffice': 'Failed to execute child process "/usr/lib/openoffice/program/soffice" (Bad address)'

One can successfully start openoffice by running 'openoffice' from the shell rather than 'oowriter'.

This happens on Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy on AMD64 platform with openoffice.org 2.3.0-1ubuntu5.3 installed.

[Dara Adib (daradib)]

I confirm this bug. Changing status to confirmed.

This bug caused by the update of OpenOffice.org to 1:2.3.0-1ubuntu5.3 on December 4, 2007, because this bug did not exist previously. I will test with version 1:2.3.0-1ubuntu5 of OpenOffice.org and report back.

The changefile is here: http://launchpadlibrarian.net/10591342/openoffice.org_2.3.0-1ubuntu5.3_source.changes

[Dara Adib (daradib)]

I removed the openoffice.org packages and installed version 1:2.3.0-1ubuntu5 via the Ubuntu Gutsy repository. But that did not fix the problem, and I still have the same issue (although I did not have this problem before when Ubuntu 7.10 was released).

Therefore I enabled the other gutsy repositories and updated the openoffice.org packages. Same problem as before.

[Dara Adib (daradib)]

Finally I found a solution.

I added the hardy repositories and then upgraded the openoffice.org packages.

The problem appears to have disappeared.

The version I have installed (and is currently in the hardy repositories) is 1:2.3.1-3ubuntu3.

[djtm (djtm)]

Same problem here.
Openoffice on gutsy x64, fairly recent version-upgrade, stops working.
will try hardy.

the problem seems to be that in Kubuntu the oowriter is called like this:
ooffice -writer

which results in the error
Error forking '/usr/lib/openoffice/program//soffice': 'Failed to execute child process "/usr/lib/openoffice/program/soffice" (Bad address)'

while just running
oowriter
is no problem.

[djtm (djtm)]

Problem still persists with current kubuntu gutsy packages. Upgrade to hardy is no satisfactory solution. (removes 146 packages, is non-trivial, problem with openoffice.org-writer2latex has no installation candidate)

[djtm (djtm)]

just run
OOO_EXTRA_ARG="" /usr/lib/openoffice/program/ooqstart -writer
to reproduce.

similar bug report for debian.
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=430413

when will Oo.o get into gutsy?

user reports e.g. http://ph.ubuntuforums.com/showthread.php?t=707990
i posted a really small howto for upgrading to the hardy packages there.

[djtm (djtm)]

just run
OOO_EXTRA_ARG="" /usr/lib/openoffice/program/ooqstart -writer
to reproduce.

similar bug report for debian.
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=430413

when will Oo.o get into gutsy?

user reports e.g. http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=707990
i posted a really small howto for upgrading to the hardy packages there.

[Chris Cheney (ccheney)]

As noted in the bug report this has been fixed in Ubuntu hardy.

[Sascha Morr (saschamorr)]

OK on hardy it works fine for me. but i don't want to use a developer version for my workstation.

cheers
Sascha

[Dara Adib (daradib)]

Based on information from the Debian bug tracker, this bug was fixed in Hardy (not Ubuntu 7.10) with the release of openoffice version 1:2.3.1-3ubuntu1 on 2008-01-09.

As a result, it would be beneficial to provide an update to version 1:2.3.1-3ubuntu3 in Ubuntu 7.10.

Additionally, does anyone here not have a x64 system as this appears to be only an issue for 64-bit Ubuntu? I have a SMP multicore 64-bit computer running 64-bit Ubuntu.

[Gert Kulyk (gkulyk)]

@Cyrus Jones
I don't think this is likely to happen, because you have to do a lot of ugly hacking to get the mentioned ooo-2.3.1-hardy-package compiled on gutsy.

You'll need to backport a whole bunch of other packages, or make use of internal copies (hsqldb-1.8.0.9, which requires a newer java-gcj-compat package due to ftbs with version included in gutsy, libicu36 or libicu38...). Furthermore you'll need either to pull in upstream 2.3.1-sources (that is the one including binary-only stuff needed to build internal jfreereport) and patch ooo-build-magic to use internal and not external jfreereport to get the report-design-package, or you'll need to backport all the system-jfreereport-stuff, otherwise you'll have to disable report-design what would be a regression. Therefore I see no chance for an official backport.