Ooo 3.1 Spreadsheet Crashes on First Open After Boot

[Alan Herron]

Binary package hint: openoffice.org

This is the edition of Ooo 3.1 that was bundled with Ubuntu karmic final beta. Ubuntu has been updated as of today, presumably to the final release.

The problem is on the first load of the spreadsheet after a boot. The program reports an unexpected error relating to Untitled-1 and crashes. If I call it again it goes into the recovery screen and will successfully recover Untitled -1. At that point the spreadsheet opens but the window is about 2 cm below the top, not it's normal position. If I click on the top bar to move it or on the X in the upper right to close it the top bar turns clear/white, and normal control becomes iffy at best. However, I can still use the File / Exit option to close the sheet. If I then open it again everything works normally. Subsequent calls also work normally until the machine is rebooted.

It appears that the spreadsheet loader or something related to Untitled-1 is corrupted. I have had several crashes on the system, but nothing I can remember specifically enough to relate to this problem. The editor works fine.

Any suggestions as to how I might repair the system? I could re-install it, of course, but that is a fairly major task if it isn't necessary or the simplest / easiest way. Any information that might help me understand the structure or general design would be helpful in the long run.

Thanks for any consideration.

Alan

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
Date: Thu Oct 29 20:08:57 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
Package: openoffice.org-core 1:3.1.1-5ubuntu1
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_CA.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: hostname 2.6.31-14.48-generic
SourcePackage: openoffice.org
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-14-generic i686

[Chris Cheney (ccheney)]

Does moving/removing the ~/.openoffice.org* directories help resolve the problem?

[Alan Herron (a-herron)]

Hi Chris, and thanks for responding. Quickly too!

I took your suggestion and it appears to have cleared the problem. I checked by invoking the spreadsheet after renaming the directory, and again after rebooting. Both invocations worked fine.

It would appear there are some trivial side effects, such as losing the "Recent files" list, but clearing the original problem is welcome.

As an interesting side note for other readers: when I found the .openoffice.org directory it had a companion called .openoffice.org2. I suspect this was a remnant of OO 3.0, which I was using with Intrepid Ibex before upgrading. I renamed openoffice.org to clear the problem, and the program generated a new one. All three were there when I looked after rebooting. I removed the two redundant ones.

As a newbie I'm not sure how to change status of the bug, but I would consider the problem resolved.

Thanks for the help, Chris. Knowledge and familiarity go a long way! Hope I can do the same for someone else soon.

Alan