Bug 151401

Summary:	Writer sometimes defaults to Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE link) upon normal pasting and thus keeps generating bookmarks
Product:	LibreOffice	Reporter:	J22Gim
Component:	Writer	Assignee:	Not Assigned <libreoffice-bugs>
Status:	RESOLVED NOTOURBUG
Severity:	normal	CC:	ilmari.lauhakangas, miguelangelrv
Priority:	medium
Version:	7.4.1.2 release
Hardware:	All
OS:	All
Whiteboard:
Crash report or crash signature:		Regression By:
Bug Depends on:
Bug Blocks:	102593
Attachments:	sample file with ghost bookmarks VLC will show you a black screen, disable hardware decoding or use another player

Description J22Gim 2022-10-07 10:03:51 UTC

Description:
When writing a normal text document, bookmarks appear without an order of the user, and they do not seem to be pointing at sensible places inside the document.

Steps to Reproduce:
1. open a new Writer document
2. start typing and copy/pasting from within the same document or from external sources using clipboard such as websites, other documents, etc.
3. check with the navigator how many items magically appear in the bookmarks section, all with the names __DdeLink__XXX_XXXXXXXXXX

Actual Results:
This has been like this forever, but I was lazy to report it. It's not really harmful, maybe annoying for some silly, structured people like myself.
When writing Writer documents, booksmarks keep appearing randomly with the name '__DdeLink__193_1758816573' or more generally with the name __DdeLink__XXX_XXXXXXXXXX with X being random (to me anyways) numbers.

These links/bookmarks appear mostly when I copy/past, either from within the same document of from external sources (eg another ODT, a website, anything). They also often appear when I find/replace text.

I used not to pay attention but I notice that these links are accumulating and when I finish writing a 15 pages document I can have easily 20 of these bookmarks, which do not seem to point to anything in particular.

If you're actually working with real bookmarks, this becomes a nightmare and you have to 'clean' those 'ghost' bookmarks several times during the preparation of the document.

Expected Results:
bookmarks should only appear when it is the intended action by the users (or a side-effect of another action, but with a sensible purpose, location, object, etc.)

Reproducible: Always

User Profile Reset: Yes

Additional Info:
Version: 7.4.1.2 / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 40(Build:2)
CPU threads: 4; OS: Linux 5.15; UI render: default; VCL: gtk3
Locale: en-US (en_US.UTF-8); UI: en-US
Ubuntu package version: 1:7.4.1~rc2-0ubuntu0.22.04.1~lo1
Calc: threaded

Comment 1 m_a_riosv 2022-10-07 13:30:00 UTC

Can you attach a sample file.

Comment 2 LeroyG 2022-10-07 19:28:25 UTC

(In reply to J22Gim from comment #0)
> 2. start […] copy/pasting […] from external sources using clipboard such as websites, other documents, etc.

External sources have bookmarks. You must paste as unformatted text (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+V) to avoid pasting bookmarks.

Not a bug for me.

Comment 3 J22Gim 2022-10-14 09:34:21 UTC

Of course, I am not pasting bookmarks from other sources...

As mentioned in my original post: These links/bookmarks appear mostly when I copy/paste, either *from within the same document* or from external sources (eg another ODT, a website, or anything). They also often appear when I find/replace text.


I just tried again and it is reproducible:
1) open a new Writer document
2) copy (and paste without format) or just write any paragraph
3) copy what you just wrote, and then paste it into a different location
4) the first "ghost" bookmark appears
5) Generate more bookmarks by repeating this action, maybe write some more words and then copy-paste them into another part of the page


Do all this with the Navigator open, and you will see how bookmarks appear out of the blue.

Comment 4 J22Gim 2022-10-14 09:37:01 UTC

Created attachment 183040 [details]
sample file with ghost bookmarks

Here you can see a file generated following my instructions.
With 4 copy-paste actions, three bookmarks magically appeared in the document:

__DdeLink__4_221990652
__DdeLink__2_221990652
__DdeLink__0_221990652

Comment 5 J22Gim 2022-10-14 09:37:59 UTC

(In reply to m.a.riosv from comment #1)
> Can you attach a sample file.

I just did

Comment 6 J22Gim 2022-10-14 09:39:28 UTC

(In reply to LeroyG from comment #2)
> (In reply to J22Gim from comment #0)
> > 2. start […] copy/pasting […] from external sources using clipboard such as websites, other documents, etc.
> 
> External sources have bookmarks. You must paste as unformatted text
> (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+V) to avoid pasting bookmarks.
> 
> Not a bug for me.

How useful can a "citation" be when replying if you omit relevant parts of the text being cited?

Comment 7 J22Gim 2023-01-03 11:46:01 UTC

Still the same in:

Version: 7.4.2.3 / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 40(Build:3)
CPU threads: 4; OS: Linux 5.15; UI render: default; VCL: gtk3
Locale: en-US (en_US.UTF-8); UI: en-US
Ubuntu package version: 1:7.4.2~rc3-0ubuntu0.22.04.1~lo1
Calc: threaded

The 'ghost bookmarks' keep appearing randomly as you keep copying and pasting content.

Comment 8 Buovjaga 2023-03-15 13:16:31 UTC

What seems to be happening here is that pasting is defaulting to the special "Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE link)" option found in the Paste Special dialog. However, clearly this is not happening for most users and I have no idea why it would happen.

Comment 9 J22Gim 2023-03-29 08:52:27 UTC

@Buovjaga, just in case the issue was related to my shortcuts configuration I tried again using only right-click and "paste" (instead of CTRL-V) and the problem persists.
_____

Still present in Version: 7.5.1.2 (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 50(Build:2)
CPU threads: 4; OS: Linux 5.15; UI render: default; VCL: gtk3
Locale: en-US (en_US.UTF-8); UI: en-US
Ubuntu package version: 4:7.5.1~rc2-0ubuntu0.22.04.1~lo1
Calc: threaded

Comment 10 J22Gim 2023-11-30 12:00:19 UTC

OK I finally found how to replicate this. The problem comes even before pasting. Weird... It seems to be related to how LO behaves when there is a clipboard manager.

In my case, the clipboard manager is qlipper.

Steps to reproduce:
1. make sure qlipper is running
2. open an empty file in Writer
3. Write anything, eg AAA
4. Select and copy that text
5. Press ENTER, the DdelLink appears.

If you repeat this but after quitting qlipper, it works fine (the DdelLink does not appear).

This is weird.. I mean, it seems to be caused by qlipper but on the other hand I am not even pasting into LO, so LO is also part of the issue, right?

I will upload a screencast showing this.

Comment 11 J22Gim 2023-11-30 12:00:58 UTC

Created attachment 191141 [details]
VLC will show you a black screen, disable hardware decoding or use another player

Comment 12 Mike Kaganski 2023-11-30 13:42:13 UTC

(In reply to J22Gim from comment #10)
> This is weird.. I mean, it seems to be caused by qlipper but on the other
> hand I am not even pasting into LO, so LO is also part of the issue, right?

Writer has to create a bookmark as soon as *anything* asks for the DDE data in clipboard. And in fact, *something* (not you, but your friendly clipper) actually *pastes* into itself, to keep the data for the posteriority.

I don't know how deserved it is to want the clipboard manager to store *every* clipboard format; or specifically DDE. If it makes sense, clipper could skip DDE format. Or make that an option.

Anyway it is not LibreOffice bug.

Comment 13 J22Gim 2023-11-30 15:53:52 UTC

I see, thanks