A Libreoffice Writer ODT that Crashes the Devuan Desktop

alexkemp · 2024-11-04 13:40:53

Somehow, I've created a feral beast that does not like Devuan.

Program bugs are one thing, but finding that your desktop freezes & nothing will work, just because you have loaded up an .odt is another experience. I'm used to this from 15 years ago with Windows, of course.

I'm perfectly serious. Is there anyone out there with the tools to be able to analyse a LO file to discover how on earth it is causing the entire desktop to freeze up?

The one clue that I have is that it may involve Frames, which seemed to be involved in every bug that I came across as I tried to add page-links into this document.

All the raw files have been placed into a GitHub repository:

https://github.com/alexkemp9/Python3docs

TIA

Nov 8 update:
I removed the "SOLVED" prefix. Using the latest LO version does NOT solve this problem. The issue lies elsewhere.

Last edited by alexkemp (2024-11-08 10:00:29)

delgado · 2024-11-04 20:57:13

Not sure whether the following is connected... .
Today, I had a uniq experience with 'LibreOfiice Calc' on a remote mashine. It killed the whole vnc-server-session when opening a document - three times in a row, then I gave up.
server: debian bookworm, running tightvncserver and libreoffice calc
client: devuan excalibur, running xtightvncviewer

At least there are similarities.
And the supplied document from github does not freeze my desktop.

alexkemp · 2024-11-04 22:19:02

delgado wrote:

the supplied document from github does not freeze my desktop

We are talking 3_new.odt, yes?

Argh!! I'm going to wait until the morning before I retry that. I could not stand my system freezing up again.

stargate-sg1-cheyenne-mtn · 2024-11-05 07:25:31

did a DDG search for "libre office" calc maximum file size and looked at a few.

https://superuser.com/questions/1560674/the-maximum-number-of-columns-per-sheet-was-exceeded

https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-newbie-8/libre-calc-exceeding-limit-4175533609/

https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=341762

did an additional DDG search for "libre office" writer maximum file size

https://ask.libreoffice.org/t/is-there-a-maximum-number-of-pages-in-libre-office-writer-also-is-there-a-limit-in-the-number-of-rows-and-columns-when-inserting-a-table-in-lo-writer/8750

don't know how "writer" differs from "calc" in LibreOffice, not to mention all the other variables with version(s) number(s) as well as dependencies and such(can be a deep hole excavating to find the bug and/or limitations).

alexkemp · 2024-11-05 12:11:29

delgado wrote:

the supplied document from github does not freeze my desktop
alexkemp wrote:
I'm going to wait until the morning before I retry that.

Well, good news/bad news.

This morning I …

Restarted my computer
Checked that there were no lock-files in the ~/Python directory
Took a deep breath
Opened ~/Python/3_new.odt as only app

… and the computer did not freeze.

I kept watching for ~2 seconds, then realised that LibreOffice (LO) had frozen. I could move the mouse, but LO did not respond to any actions (no page movement, no scroll).

I tried closing LO from the desktop screen & got the "This program is not responding" message & asked for it to be closed down.

This is almost the identical behaviour that I experienced with 2_scratch.odt that caused me to try to reformat it as 3_new.odt. There is clearly some kind of issue inside the 2nd + 3rd ODT causing them to freeze. I wish that I knew where to start to find out precisely what.

The kernel has upgraded from 6.1.0-26 to 6.1.0-27 since I had the System freeze with 3_new.odt. Maybe that is a reason that my system is now safe from LO attack!

Well, many thanks to delgado for testing it out. I have a horrible feeling that I am now stuck with an untenable ODT.

In response to stargate: there are a number of Tables in this Writer document, but each is very small. There should not be any problem with a 700-page document (I sincerely hope).

The physical machine has 8 GiB of physical memory. That was a lot when I bought it, and is trivial now, of course, but together with swap-space on the HDD should be enough:

$ sudo lshw -C memory -short
[sudo] password for alexk: 
H/W path       Device      Class       Description
==================================================
/0/0                       memory      64KiB BIOS
/0/14                      memory      8GiB System Memory
/0/14/0                    memory      SODIMM DDR3 [empty]
/0/14/1                    memory      8GiB DIMM DDR3 Synchronous Unbuffered (Unregistered) 800 MHz (1.2 ns)
/0/1a                      memory      256KiB L1 cache
/0/1b                      memory      2MiB L2 cache

stargate-sg1-cheyenne-mtn · 2024-11-05 15:15:33

this post(from within one of the earlier mentioned threads) describes a file taking 8 minutes to load initially.

https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?p=1965711&#p1965711

alexkemp · 2024-11-05 15:57:45

Thanks stargate, I'll pay attention to that & discover whether it will become responsive again (if so, perhaps the no-Contents production was an identical issue).

However, all that will have to take a back-seat. I've got pressing issues coming up shortly, and will have to attend to those first.

alexkemp · 2024-11-05 19:30:11

I couldn't wait, so asked LO to start 3_new.odt, started my smartphone stopwatch & waited.

There are 4 cores in my Desktop machine, and I noted that one of them was 100% occupied all the time. Just once across the next 25 minutes I noted that processing had switched to a different core.

I had decided that I was willing to give it 25 minutes.

Too often I've been in situations where a process has gotten stuck & I could have waited for eternity & never had obtained satisfaction. This seemed like one of those.

After 25 minutes I force-closed it.

Thanks stargate, but I do not think that waiting for startup is any fix for this one.

Ron · 2024-11-05 21:13:31

I seem to recall that when I had funky files like this in Windows, what I would do was open it up, then do a copy/paste, and paste it into a new document and save. Then discard the original. Not sure it would work for your problem or not, or if you would even have time to do it before it freezes.

Last edited by Ron (2024-11-05 21:18:48)

alexkemp · 2024-11-06 00:34:40

Hi Ron.

Couple of things:

No time to do the copy/paste before LO freezes
One of the bugs I found (listed at the bottom of GitHub) is that Tables encapsulated in a Frame are missed on a Copy. So it wouldn't even transfer accurately if I could copy/paste.

prospero · 2024-11-06 01:26:24

The LO window also freezes here after 5-10 seconds when I try to open 3_new.odt. Older kernel (5.15) and later LO (24.8), same system memory (8 GiO). So the devil really is in the details of the odt.

If you could overcome the Table-in-a-Frame copying bug, you may still have a chance to recover its content: if I keep scrolling along for about 20+ seconds, the beast eventually get tamed and I am able to get a reasonably pliant document. I also get one core running at 100% once the window has frozen, but the situation is not much better after taming the beast. It is still a wild beast after all, even if a tamed one.

zapper · 2024-11-06 02:38:03

I have only had maybe one time where ODT crashed in libreoffice writer or focuswriter.

I had formatted it in one of those and then made edits in abiword.

Big mistake...

PedroReina · 2024-11-06 10:01:04

Out of curiosity, I opened the file https://github.com/alexkemp9/Python3doc … /3_new.odt in my oooold Debian 7 (32 bits) box:

LibreOffice: 5.0.0.5
cat /etc/debian_version => 7.11
uname -srm => Linux 3.2.0-6-686-pae i686

It worked: no freezzes, no problems, fast loading times.

Babarosa · 2024-11-06 11:09:42

Hi there!

Here on Devuan 5 Xfce 64 bit with Libre Office 7.6.7.2 there are no problems with this document so far.
LO 7.6.7.2 is the latest version which doesn't need to install additionally python.

EDIT: typed wrong version of LO

Last edited by Babarosa (2024-11-06 12:03:20)

alexkemp · 2024-11-06 14:53:13

Hi Babarosa.

Your post is the most hopeful for me so far.

I've tried "apt search libreoffice" & absolutely everything that came up is 7.4.7 (same as I currently have).

How did you install 7.6.7? Is it installed concurrent with 7.4.7 or instead of?

It sounds crazily ironic that v5.0.0 & v7.6.7 both can open this ODT yet v7.4.7 freezes solid.

rolfie · 2024-11-06 15:17:09

Well, 7.4.7 is what is available in Daedalus main/security. Daedalus backports has 24.8.2. You might give that a try.

7.6.7 only is available as direct download from https://downloadarchive.documentfoundat … ffice/old/. If you do not trust the backports version, that would be an alternative. If you want I can describe what you need to do to remove 7.4.7 and to install 7.6.7.

Last edited by rolfie (2024-11-06 15:17:23)

alexkemp · 2024-11-06 15:40:21

rolfie wrote:

Daedalus backports has 24.8.2

OK, now I'm confused.

That is why I did an 'apt search', so that I could get advised of the range of different LO versions available. And it only offered me 7.4.7. Yet I've already got backports in my listing:

$ grep ^[^#] /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list.d/*
/etc/apt/sources.list:deb http://deb.devuan.org/merged daedalus                  main non-free-firmware non-free contrib
/etc/apt/sources.list:deb http://deb.devuan.org/merged daedalus-updates          main non-free-firmware non-free contrib
/etc/apt/sources.list:deb http://deb.devuan.org/merged daedalus-security         main non-free-firmware non-free contrib
/etc/apt/sources.list:deb http://deb.devuan.org/merged daedalus-proposed-updates main non-free-firmware non-free contrib
/etc/apt/sources.list:deb http://deb.devuan.org/merged daedalus-backports        main non-free-firmware non-free contrib
/etc/apt/sources.list.d/josm.list:deb https://josm.openstreetmap.de/apt/ alldist universe

I run an update every day, but I've never been offered 24.8.2.

So, how would I tell it to update from backports (or have I pinned it somehow)?

Added later:

I've looked at the search listing (which is huge) more closely & have discovered a number of bpo, but the main element appears missing. Here is the closest:

libreoffice-uiconfig-writer/stable-backports 4:24.8.2-1~bpo12+1 all
UI data ("config") for LibreOffice Writer

What I mean by 'main element' is a straightforward "libreoffice-writer" etc, which is present for 7.4.7 but not 24.8.2. I think that an error has been made.

I think that I shall try to install an AppImage & pray that there are no systemD viruses tucked in there.

Last edited by alexkemp (2024-11-06 15:53:05)

rolfie · 2024-11-06 16:32:50

I use

# apt list libreoffice*

There the backports packages are present. The solution for the complete package is e.g. libreoffice-gtk4 or libreoffice-qt6. There are no single packages for writer.

Anyhow: nothing from backports is installed automagically. Pinning makes sure backports doesn't have highest prio. If you want to install something from backports, you need to specify that by using:

# apt -t daedalus-backports install $Packagename

Babarosa · 2024-11-06 19:23:57

Hi alexkemp!

I download LO 7.6.7.2 from here:
https://downloadarchive.documentfoundat … 6.7.2/deb/

Decide if you need x86 or x64 (the latest working version for x86 is 6.2.8.2).
You need the main package and the language file, maybe you also like the help file.

First unpack the main package to your home folder.
In a terminal enter:
cd Libre*
cd DEBS
sudo dpkg -i *.deb
delete the folder Libre... (because the other packages also start with the name Libre...)

Next unpack the language package to your home folder.
Repeat the former commands by using your keyboard's up cursor.
cd Libre*
cd DEBS
sudo dpkg -i *.deb
delete the folder Libre... (because the other packages also start with the name Libre...)

Finally unpack the help package to your home folder.
In a terminal enter:
cd Libre*
cd DEBS
sudo dpkg -i *.deb
delete the last final folder Libre...

Then LO should appear as several starters in your menu bar.

Last edited by Babarosa (2024-11-06 19:30:03)

alexkemp · 2024-11-06 22:37:02

Thanks to rolfie & Babarosa for your responses.

I decided to go with an AppImage since that offered the opportunity to use a later version without changing any of the currently installed LO elements. It turned out to be not so much of a success (and then more of a success, see below).

I went through the following steps:

$ cd /usr/local/bin
$ sudo wget https://appimages.libreitalia.org/Libre … 4.AppImage
$ sudo mv LibreOffice-fresh.standard-x86_64.AppImage LibreOffice-24.8.AppImage
$ sudo chmod a+x LibreOffice-24.8.AppImage
$ LibreOffice-24.8.AppImage --help
LibreOffice 24.8.2.1 0f794b6e29741098670a3b95d60478a65d05ef13
$ sudo cp /usr/share/applications/libreoffice-startcenter.desktop /usr/share/applications/loappimage-startcenter.desktop
$ sudo nano /usr/share/applications/loappimage-startcenter.desktop
(I changed the .desktop name + all Exec lines to begin /usr/local/bin/LibreOffice-24.8.AppImage, but pretty much every else was left unchanged)

The new launch link was immediately within menu:Office | LO AppImage Start Centre & showed the correct LO version.

I launched 3_new.odt and GOOD LORD yes! I was able to navigate around the file & travel from top to bottom.

It was still troubling. LO was having problems with the page display at the bottom of the file. The number of pages showing in the Status Bar at bottom left, and also on each page, kept changing. In addition, Figure 15.1 (it is an image & can be viewed safely in the PDF) kept appearing at the top of the bibliography & also other pages, each one well out of place.

Since it seemed stable I asked for the file to be saved. Everything seemed fine & at a normal speed until almost at the very end, when LO & the screen froze. It stayed like that for some time & I had to force-close it. So, no change.

I did not make any changes to the file before saving.

2nd try:

Ran the whole thing again as to be able to discover the name of the image that kept appearing out of order near the bottom of the file (Fig 15.1) (it kept shifting in the display from page-to-page from moment to moment). I noticed that a single core (1 of 4) was active all the time. Also, that the LO version was GTK.

Then I noticed that the usage had dropped from 30% to a more-normal figure. I tried Save again & this time LO both saved it & also completed. I was able to shut the program down normally.

Whoo-hah! This version of LO is hardly working the way that it is supposed to with an ODT, but it seems that I may have use of the file back again, so many thanks to all who responded.

The following pages were also of assistance:

Update Nov 7: display fixes

Last edited by alexkemp (2024-11-07 09:26:51)

s1mple · 2024-11-08 10:29:20

That's a very interesting bug you've experienced. From what I'm reading my guess is that you've hit some magic spot where LO can't decide on which page to place an object and then get stuck in a loop doing layout and rendering.

If you encounters anything like this again, you can try to run the program with the nice command and a value of 19 to give it the lowest priority in the scheduler. That might prevent the system becoming unresponsive. Another more fine grained way to contain such beasts use of cpu and memory is with cgroups, but that's a bit more advanced.

alexkemp · 2024-11-09 13:38:28

A significant report to make:

Some folks reported that it opened fine in old versions of LO:
PedroReina :: LO-5.0.0.5
Babarosa :: LO-7.6.7.2
I had a strong suspicion that the mantra of 'use the newest version' may be skew-whiff (winXP v winVista, anyone?)
From LO AppImages listing I downloaded & installed "LibreOffice-7.2.3.2.basic-x86_64.AppImage"
It was pointed out to me on ask lo org that I was "using Direct Paragraph Formatting instead of Body Text" and that "Direct formatting puts stress on Writer because every occurrence must be handled individually whereas style effects can be cached and reused at will"
3_new.odt loaded up under 7.2.3.2 & allowed me to operate LO
(the load was still 30%, but this time I had full access to LO).
I modified the Text Body style to single line-spacing
(that matches the original document closely).
Ctrl-h gave Search+Replace. Using "Paragraph Styles" I searched for "Default Paragraph Style" & replaced with "Text Body"
Changing only the paragraphs within the Introduction I saved as 4_paragraph-fix.odt, closed then re-opened.
Opening 4_paragraph-fix.odt again all the excess load was magically gone. Good Lord.

Added later:

Going to re-open 4_paragraph-fix.odt I thought to open 7.4.7 & see if it would also open the ODT at less than 30% load. It turned out to be worse than that. LO froze up. What?

Opening 24.8.2 the ODT was at 30% load but *did* allow access to ODT.

I'll change the rest of the paragraphs & see what happens.

Note 1:
In 24.8.2 "Text Body" style has been changed to "Body Text"

Note 2:
The above is the 2nd time that I've been through all this. The first time I changed not just the plain paragraphs but also Tables & SideBars. I got about halfway through & changed something (do not know what) that caused the load to go through the roof & freeze LO solid (this was under 7.2.3.2). This time I'm re-doing it from the beginning, going slowly & saving damn near every minute.

Last edited by alexkemp (2024-11-09 14:01:46)

alexkemp · 2024-11-09 17:36:41

My situation at the end of the last post proved to be a false dawn when I restarted since the 30% load was back & did not go away. No changes at my end yet the bug was back. I carried on updating the paragraphs regardless.

Whilst still in the process of fixing all normal paragraphs (by changing them to being styled with "Text Body" rather than "Default Paragraph Style") I've just reached "Chapter 3 Collection Data Types" (page 113 out of 599) and, finally, the system load has switched yet again from being at a constant 30% (1 of the 4 cpu cores constantly fully occupied) to a more normal 2%.

Reaching this state has been my goal. I've done these changes before & reached this blissful condition on that occasion. In my ignorance I thought that all my problems were over until, after many more changes, the whole thing suddenly completely froze up.

On the previous occasion I had zero idea as to what change triggered the LO freeze. This time I am monitoring the results of the changes that I make much more carefully.

Wish me luck.

PS
I got Kernel 6.10 installed from bpo today & that had a harsh computer bug. I could not restart into the kernel because of some blasted error. I had to restart into the old kernel. Together with these LO issues it all seemed completely normal.

alexkemp · 2024-11-10 12:14:28

This sorry tale continues.

To re-iterate: somewhere within a 600 page Writer ODT is *something* that has triggered a weird bug.

A long-time expert on the ask.libreoffice.org website fingered my use of "Default Paragraph Style" as one source for system slowdown (should be "Text Body" / "Body Text" instead). I set out to change every one of the thousands of 'ordinary' (not indented, or list, etc) Default-paragraphs to Text Body-paragraphs. Having got almost halfway through those manual changes, I have:

Discovered that LO-7.6.7.2 allowed access to edit + save the odt, although the system was at 30% load throughout
Changing the 43 paragraphs in the 'Introduction' / save / re-open caused all the excess load to go away
Restarting LibreOffice (after no further changes) the load was back
Reaching page 113 of 599 with edits the excess load goes away again.
Simply restarting LibreOffice (no further changes) and the load is back.
Restarting computer then LibreOffice at page 233, after changing 3 paragraphs LibreOffice freezes & has to be dismissed with prejudice (ps aux | fgrep -i libreoffice then kill -9 4112 4171).
At some page before this LibreOffice froze so hard that the entire computer system also froze; it required Ctrl+Alt+F1 (go to the command-line) | login | startx | restart computer)

I can't take much more of this.

stargate-sg1-cheyenne-mtn · 2024-11-12 10:46:07

slightly off-topic but for future readers/visitors to this thread(who searched for "libreoffice" for whatever reason) and with respect to pdf documents/files, this webpage was interesting/thought-provoking:

https://exactcode.com/recompress/

and if you poke around there you will probably also eventually find yourself somewhere in the T2-SDE website:

https://t2sde.org/kb/3/

full disclosure: no affiliation/association with any referenced, just humble friendly sharing. Excellent! Party On!

The officially official Devuan Forum!

#1 2024-11-04 13:40:53

A Libreoffice Writer ODT that Crashes the Devuan Desktop

#2 2024-11-04 20:57:13

Re: A Libreoffice Writer ODT that Crashes the Devuan Desktop

#3 2024-11-04 22:19:02

Re: A Libreoffice Writer ODT that Crashes the Devuan Desktop

#4 2024-11-05 07:25:31

Re: A Libreoffice Writer ODT that Crashes the Devuan Desktop

#5 2024-11-05 12:11:29

Re: A Libreoffice Writer ODT that Crashes the Devuan Desktop

#6 2024-11-05 15:15:33

Re: A Libreoffice Writer ODT that Crashes the Devuan Desktop

#7 2024-11-05 15:57:45

Re: A Libreoffice Writer ODT that Crashes the Devuan Desktop

#8 2024-11-05 19:30:11

Re: A Libreoffice Writer ODT that Crashes the Devuan Desktop

#9 2024-11-05 21:13:31

Re: A Libreoffice Writer ODT that Crashes the Devuan Desktop

#10 2024-11-06 00:34:40

Re: A Libreoffice Writer ODT that Crashes the Devuan Desktop

#11 2024-11-06 01:26:24

Re: A Libreoffice Writer ODT that Crashes the Devuan Desktop

#12 2024-11-06 02:38:03

Re: A Libreoffice Writer ODT that Crashes the Devuan Desktop

#13 2024-11-06 10:01:04

Re: A Libreoffice Writer ODT that Crashes the Devuan Desktop

#14 2024-11-06 11:09:42

Re: A Libreoffice Writer ODT that Crashes the Devuan Desktop

#15 2024-11-06 14:53:13

Re: A Libreoffice Writer ODT that Crashes the Devuan Desktop

#16 2024-11-06 15:17:09

Re: A Libreoffice Writer ODT that Crashes the Devuan Desktop

#17 2024-11-06 15:40:21

Re: A Libreoffice Writer ODT that Crashes the Devuan Desktop

#18 2024-11-06 16:32:50

Re: A Libreoffice Writer ODT that Crashes the Devuan Desktop

#19 2024-11-06 19:23:57

Re: A Libreoffice Writer ODT that Crashes the Devuan Desktop

#20 2024-11-06 22:37:02

Re: A Libreoffice Writer ODT that Crashes the Devuan Desktop

2nd try:

#21 2024-11-08 10:29:20

Re: A Libreoffice Writer ODT that Crashes the Devuan Desktop

#22 2024-11-09 13:38:28

Re: A Libreoffice Writer ODT that Crashes the Devuan Desktop

#23 2024-11-09 17:36:41

Re: A Libreoffice Writer ODT that Crashes the Devuan Desktop

#24 2024-11-10 12:14:28

Re: A Libreoffice Writer ODT that Crashes the Devuan Desktop

#25 2024-11-12 10:46:07

Re: A Libreoffice Writer ODT that Crashes the Devuan Desktop

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