Openoffice does not work (Solved)

[melmerby]

Hi All

I have been running Kubuntu 10.04 since last year and apart from never getting any sound (not essential) everything else worked fine. However a few days ago Openoffice stopped working. I can click on any of the icons but I cannot get any app to run. Even when I click on an Openoffice file it will not open.

I completely uninstalled Openoffice and Java using synaptic and re-installed them without success.

I decided to try an upgrade to 10.10, assuming an all new core and system would cure it to no avail, in fact even worse. Kmail has now stopped working!

What's going on?

Keith

[rfakhrai]

Re: Openoffice does not work

A distro-version upgrade is never a good idea to solve software issues. Rather, clean install will always take care of issues.

Usually, with a situation like this, it's best to start by trying to open the program from a terminal. In this case type oowriter in a terminal. It will give you some output regarding why it's not starting up. Post that output here.

[melmerby]

Re: Openoffice does not work

Hi there

Just tried that and found that the editor doesn't work either!

Methinks a clean install is required. It looks like there has been a major corruption somewhere.

I shall move all my document files to the other hard drive and start a new install from the 10.04 CD ROM.
The only files I am concerned about are the Kmail mailbox entries. Where would I find them?

Cheers
Keith

[rfakhrai]

Re: Openoffice does not work

those should be in ~/.kde/share/apps/kmail/mail/

[melmerby]

Re: Openoffice does not work

Thank you

Just got around to doing that, found them.
Is there another program that will read the files? Or are they specific to Kmail?

Cheers

Keith

[rfakhrai]

Re: Openoffice does not work

If I recall, those files are specific to KMail.

Keep in mind that, if you use a webmail service like Gmail, all of your e-mail is stored on their server so if you choose to use a mail program other than KMail, you can just get the e-mails from the Gmail server.

To emphasize my point above, never assume that an upgrade to a new version of the distro will solve your problems. Browsing around the forums, there are numerous threads dedicated to problems that arise when you upgrade instead of doing a clean install.

My motto: If I backup all my data regularly, I'm prepared for a clean install anytime should the need arise. 8)

[melmerby]

Re: Openoffice does not work

How do you back up Kmail?
I know what to do with W**dows using MS Outlook but not Linux.
All my other documents are duplicated elsewhere so no hardship having to do a re-install.

I've found Kubuntu (and other Distros) sometimes pretty hard going. E.g as mentioned earlier I've never managed to get the sound system to work (or when using an alternative sound card). I even tried several re-installs when I first loaded 10.04. All the info about the installed sound packages says they are working even down to getting many different types of sound file file to "play" but completely silently!
However on another computer I have with similar, but not identical, hardware everything re sound worked first time with 10.04.

Keith

[The Liquidator]

Re: Openoffice does not work

You are choosing the way of pain, I'm afraid.

Instead of going through that, simply go into your home directory in dolphin and select view/show hidden files.

Then rename (DON'T DELETE) the .openoffice folder. Then try it again. My belief is that the program will now load, and you will then be able to move data like your autotexts etc from old to new.

On sound issues please post a new query indicating what hardware you have. Maybe we can get you up and running.

[blobfish]

Re: Openoffice does not work

How do you back up Kmail?

~/.kde/share/apps/kmail/mail directory containing emails
~/.kde/share/apps/kabc directory containing address book
~/.kde/share/config/ other relevant files
kmailrc
emaildefaults
emailidentities
mailtransports

Quite something isn't it. I have resorted to a script creating symbolic links out of this mess into my own mail folder. I have a love hate relationship with kmail. FYI The address book is moving away from the kabc directory setup into akonadi. I will stop short of ranting about that.

[rfakhrai]

Re: Openoffice does not work

Instead of going through that, simply go into your home directory in dolphin and select view/show hidden files.

Then rename (DON'T DELETE) the .openoffice folder. Then try it again. My belief is that the program will now load, and you will then be able to move data like your autotexts etc from old to new.

I think this would have been a possible solution had the OP not upgraded to 10.10 which, apparently, has caused even more breakage. So it sounds like it's too late and the OP has committed to doing a clean install which I think is prudent in this case. As for KMail, tanderson has a good point and hopefully the OP will be able to backup the files.

[Ole Juul]

Re: Openoffice does not work

I don't want to confuse this thread and perhaps another one should be started on this topic if the OP wants. However, regarding the sound problem, it sounds like the PCM slider needs to be turned on and up.

[melmerby]

Re: Openoffice does not work

Thanks for all those comments.
I have copied all the Kmail folder onto another hard drive so as not to lose the mailboxes.
(I also have it on a memory stick)

If I do a new install will it be OK to just move them back to the new install?

Cheers

Keith

[The Liquidator]

Re: Openoffice does not work

Forgive me but if all you are doing is trying to do is make openoffice work, why are we talking about an OS reinstall with all that that entails?

I am happy to be proved wrong, but think that if you rename your Openoffice user file you have a 90%+ chance of fixing this. If you don't think it's worth a try then fair enough.

Same with kmail - rename the kmail config files in .kde/share/config and kmail may well work, only requiring reconfiguring.

I don't mean to offend but this has the potential to be sledgehammer and nut.

[rfakhrai]

Re: Openoffice does not work

I decided to try an upgrade to 10.10, assuming an all new core and system would cure it to no avail, in fact even worse. Kmail has now stopped working!

I'm not arguing either way but this sentence makes it sound like the OP has seen other problems and thinks that a clean install is the best way of going about it. I'm not going to try to dissuade him/her from doing that because the problems that arose from a 10.04-10.10 upgrade have been well-documented and they are numerous. Therefore, I don't personally care what the OP does and it seems that he/she is ready to do a clean install.

I myself always love the look and feel of a brand new installation

Now, it's in your hands, OP.

[melmerby]

Re: Openoffice does not work

Hi Liquidator.

When I first noticed a problem it was Openoffice documents not opening, hence the post, however I then lost Kmail and also now cannot run commands with sudo I tried an upgrade to 10.10, hoping all those replacement files would help, but that seems to have made it even more flaky, I get lots of comments flash by on shutdown and a page telling me I have 3 documents to recover in Openoffice, which I can't do.
Based on that and the fact that I never had any sound even though I did everything suggested in the help files for KDE and Alsa, etc. I decided a new install of 10.04 would be best.
As all the documents are safe, on other hard drives, apart from the Kmail mailboxes, recovering them is what I need to do. I have copies and hope that I can just replace the newly created mailboxes with the 'old' ones.

Keith