KDE4.2 and OpenOffice bug

[kbunt]

This is a major bug. I cannot save an OpenOffice file because soon as I click 'Save As', the entire system freezes/crashes. It's a total system crash as I can't do anything. I have to reboot.

Talk about a bug!

I think KDE4 is a major disaster and KDE 4.2 won't be released on time. That's my prediction. Well, if they don't mind a zillion bugs remaining, they will but I don't think it will be a clean system by the time they were planning on releasing it.

[MoonRise]

Re: KDE4.2 and OpenOffice bug

I don't know if you can totally blame KDE4 for such an incident, but lets take a step back to try and isolate the problem. What version of Open Office are you using (that is, is it from the Repos or self installed from OOo)? Also, are you trying to save a Document or Spreadsheet? Based on your Sig, your set up isn't total different from mine. Have you updated KDE to 4.1.4?

[jankushka]

Re: KDE4.2 and OpenOffice bug

sorry to read that...
i have the exact opposite experience.
so much that 8.10 now runs on both my office and my private laptops.
for the first time ever both suspend to ram and disc work reliably on all my systems.
all the tools i need are there.
i installed it on my wife's new sony vaio.
with the only exception of the fingerprint scanner everything else runs out of the box.
webcam included.
she is delighted with how easy it is to use it.
i was skeptical about kde4 when i first beta tested it.
but it was a long time ago.
there were barely a few applications ready.
i was still on 7.10 for production until 2 days ago.
but 8.10 is good enough for me now (i added the -proposed repos, though).
so i moved over.
not that all this changes your situation much...
hth nonetheless.
cheers

[claydoh]

Re: KDE4.2 and OpenOffice bug

Here we go again........ constant Doom And Gloom in the experimental/testing world


This is a new bug, at least in Jaunty as they have recently updated that to openoffice 3, which has been known to have KDE4 related bugs. Are you running Jaunty, or Intrepid? and which version of oo.o if you are in Intrepid?

I do find it odd that oo.o 2.4 didn't do this in KDE4, so i wonder what the fine folks at openoffice have changed between the 2 versions? Especially as that office suite is still basically working on old code more or less, afaik

You can 'kill' this without rebooting/logging out by going to a terminal (ctrl-alt-f1), and run:

killall soffice

and then hit ctrl-alt-f7 to get back to your desktop if it happens again

You can fix this by uninstalling the package openoffice.org-kde
ooo will become ugly, but will not crash anymore.
unfortunately, the Openoffice folks have not put any support into kde4. So it is sort of their problem, unless someone figures it out, and it affects more than just Kubuntu, it affects any KDE distro not using the standard gtk//gnome interface, and instead using their kde-style interface.

This is why installing the packages directly from oo.o don't do this - they are using the gtk style interface/theme

This would almost be be a great time to promote Koffice for Kubuntu, but I don't think version 2 will be ready before Jaunty.

[kbunt]

Re: KDE4.2 and OpenOffice bug

I don't know if you can totally blame KDE4 for such an incident, but lets take a step back to try and isolate the problem. What version of Open Office are you using (that is, is it from the Repos or self installed from OOo)? Also, are you trying to save a Document or Spreadsheet? Based on your Sig, your set up isn't total different from mine. Have you updated KDE to 4.1.4?

KDE 4.1.96 (4.2 RC1).
I installed OO from the repos. I don't know which method is preferred and I think I've read cases for both methods.

I'm trying to save a document.

There are other strange things going on, though. I am only assuming the OO crash is the worst one so far because it results in a total freeze of my system that I can't recover from (yet?).

When Kubuntu boots up and just before it gets to the login screen and before the icons show up, there is a quick flash (I am using the defaults for the screen so far so it's grey at first) that seems strange. What's that about?

Terminal often opens up to a grey screen also in which there is no prompt or tool bar.

Thanks claydoh, for the additional info and ideas. I will try them just to see what happens.

But, KDE 4.2 seems too buggy for my liking. Isn't the release a couple days away?

I might have to switch back to Debian and/or sidux in the meantime to see if further developments in KDE 4 improve enough for my liking.

[MoonRise]

Re: KDE4.2 and OpenOffice bug

Ahh... Didn't notice this until now "KDE 4.1.96 (4.2 RC1)." That is probably the problem right there. KDE4.2 isn't official yet, and I'm fairly sure that it would cause problems with 8.10's Default OOo install. Unfortunately I'm at 4.1.4 and don;t plan on moving over to 4.2 until official release, so I won't be able to help further. Sorry.

Though I could be wrong since the release date of KDE4.2 is this coming week and assuming you've kept up with the current builds of KDE4.2. It might all go back to what Claydoh said about OOo not being KDE "friendly".

[kbunt]

Re: KDE4.2 and OpenOffice bug

sorry to read that...
i have the exact opposite experience.
so much that 8.10 now runs on both my office and my private laptops.
for the first time ever both suspend to ram and disc work reliably on all my systems.
all the tools i need are there.
i installed it on my wife's new sony vaio.
with the only exception of the fingerprint scanner everything else runs out of the box.
webcam included.
she is delighted with how easy it is to use it.
i was skeptical about kde4 when i first beta tested it.
but it was a long time ago.
there were barely a few applications ready.
i was still on 7.10 for production until 2 days ago.
but 8.10 is good enough for me now (i added the -proposed repos, though).
so i moved over.
not that all this changes your situation much...
hth nonetheless.
cheers

Kubuntu 8.10 is fine I think considering. I don't have an issue with it except for being picky on a few topics here and there. But, I just don't like KDE 4 because of all the peculiar things that happen - well, my own experiences. If others like KDE 4, good for them. But, I don't think one can deny all the complaints about it. I have googled it and noticed I am not alone with the disappointment. I probably don't even do what they do everyday so my complaints are regarding basic tasks but they are probably frustrated with some bugs effecting basic tasks as well. I like KDE 3 and I think KDE 4 could be better in another way with the flashy effects although Vista-like but I don't like 'weird surprises' and too many crashes. Why have all the eye candy and effects if I'm told to disable all that? Maybe it should have been a longer-term project? I like and understand what they are trying to do but it will turn people off, imho. Imho, it should have been experimental for a much longer time.

[kbunt]

Re: KDE4.2 and OpenOffice bug

Ahh... Didn't notice this until now "KDE 4.1.96 (4.2 RC1)." That is probably the problem right there. KDE4.2 isn't official yet, and I'm fairly sure that it would cause problems with 8.10's Default OOo install. Unfortunately I'm at 4.1.4 and don;t plan on moving over to 4.2 until official release, so I won't be able to help further. Sorry.

Though I could be wrong since the release date of KDE4.2 is this coming week and assuming you've kept up with the current builds of KDE4.2. It might all go back to what Claydoh said about OOo not being KDE "friendly".

Maybe. But, saving a document seems pretty basic and if you can't and it crashes an entire OS, that sounds pretty bad.

[claydoh]

Re: KDE4.2 and OpenOffice bug

The release is in a couple of days, and unofficial packages will be available for Intrepid. Official, supported 4.2 packages will be for Jaunty, in April.

Are you using the unsupported openoffice 3 ppa repo? Intrepid has ooo2.4, not 3, and i don't think that 2.4 has this problem. You may have better luck reverting back to that.

I don't know how often the 4.2 packages are updated for 8.10, but the konsole problem seems to have gone away for me in Jaunty. Your login screen 'flash' is something I had seen on my old ati card in this 2004-2005 era laptop, but was fixed somehow in Intrepid for me (can't remember the link to the fix -some xorg packages rebuilt with different options I think) but I have it currently in jaunty again (I no longer have the 'fix' in Jaunty I would think).

[claydoh]

Re: KDE4.2 and OpenOffice bug

I found a pretty simple fix for OO.o that doesn't involve removing openoffice.org-kde:
change it to use its native file dialogs instead:
tools > options > general + "use open office dialogs"
that way you keep the ui looking nice, except for the file dialogs

[kbunt]

Re: KDE4.2 and OpenOffice bug

I found a pretty simple fix for OO.o that doesn't involve removing openoffice.org-kde:
change it to use its native file dialogs instead:
tools > options > general + "use open office dialogs"
that way you keep the ui looking nice, except for the file dialogs

I found that solution, too. Thanks for your post which was had a large portion do the same thing - I reproduced the crash and proceeded with the steps and added the tools option. Yes, it's fixed now (for the moment).

I don't use KOffice since KOffice doesn't support MS documents.

[claydoh]

Re: KDE4.2 and OpenOffice bug

I don't use KOffice since KOffice doesn't support MS documents.

Koffice does, just not as well, yet. Simpler spreadsheets opened/saved fine, but more complex ones didn't go so well. Koffice2's alphas had much better MS file support last I looked, but again, its not quite ready yet

[kbunt]

Re: KDE4.2 and OpenOffice bug

Koffice does, just not as well, yet. Simpler spreadsheets opened/saved fine, but more complex ones didn't go so well. Koffice2's alphas had much better MS file support last I looked, but again, its not quite ready yet

When it's better, I will try it.
Btw, it's not because I *want* to use MS stuff. It's probably because it's used by so many people and it's mostly related to work (employment reasons), too. Lots of people use Windoze and when they do something with a word processor, it's probably Word and they need something in that format unless one is lucky and they will accept a .txt file.

Btw (#2), I was using the unsupported openoffice 3 ppa repo. I didn't consider there might be some issue with that but now that you mention it... nevertheless, I think the bug I came across is pretty serious. At least, that suggestion of checking the 'openoffice file dialog' option seemed to work and avoid the problem for now.

[kyonides]

Re: KDE4.2 and OpenOffice bug

Well, just in case the suggestion of checking the 'openoffice file dialog' option fails I may suggest now to install the MultiSave extension. I'm using the unsupported openoffice 3 ppa repo, too and experienced the same problem, but clicking on the MultiSave extension button instead of the Save As one solved it. Here's the link I found.

http://extensions.services.openoffic...ject/MultiSave

Oops, I forgot to explain what it does... Well, this extension lets you save your document or spreadsheet or even your presentation in OOo, MS and PDF formats at the same time, but you may want to deselect one or two options if deemed necessary.

[kbunt]

Re: KDE4.2 and OpenOffice bug

Hey, that is pretty interesting. Thanks for the info, kyonides! It is much appreciated since I use OO a lot. Although, I think someone sure screwed up as you should be able to use 'Save As' as a default and not have a problem. I like the idea of having the function of saving to multiple formats even though I am not sure I'd do that often. Still, it sounds cool.

Thanks for the info and explaining what it does.