Bug 156628

Summary:	Libreoffice Calc can't open external file over CIFS (FILEOPEN)
Product:	LibreOffice	Reporter:	W Sanders <wsanders>
Component:	Calc	Assignee:	Not Assigned <libreoffice-bugs>
Status:	RESOLVED NOTOURBUG
Severity:	minor	CC:	buzea.bogdan, wsanders
Priority:	medium
Version:	7.5.5.2 release
Hardware:	x86-64 (AMD64)
OS:	Linux (All)
Whiteboard:
Crash report or crash signature:		Regression By:

Description W Sanders 2023-08-05 18:55:17 UTC

New in 7.5.5.2: I have a file with lots of references to several external files. It can't load one (of three) of the external files, even when the external file is previously open on the desktop: "The following external file could not be loaded. Data linked from this file did not get updated.

file:///cifs/4core.local/wsanders/.....[file]"

This is new in 7.5.5.2. Note the file is mounted via CIFS, permissions are fine and I can read and write the external file in libreoffice when it is open. This is reproduceable in safe mode. I am running Calc on the command line and there is no output other than minor errors related to Wayland.

To test this, I installed libreoffice on the CIFS file server and ran Calc over VNC. I can't reproduce the problem on the fileserver, so this is probably related more to CIFS. 

Any advice on how to further debug this? Running libreoffice over VLC from the file server as a workaround meanwhile.

Version: 7.5.5.2 (X86_64)
Build ID: 50(Build:2)
CPU threads: 12; OS: Linux 6.4; UI render: default; VCL: kf5 (cairo+wayland)
Locale: en-US (en_US.UTF-8); UI: en-US
Calc: threaded

Comment 1 W Sanders 2023-08-05 19:01:08 UTC

Additional: I am mounting the cifs with the default Fedora options, except for "--timeout=300" smb.conf on the server is default Fedora one:
[global]
        workgroup = SAMBA
        security = user
        passdb backend = tdbsam
        printing = cups
        printcap name = cups
        load printers = yes
        cups options = raw
        # Install samba-usershares package for support
        include = /etc/samba/usershares.conf
[homes]
        comment = Home Directories
        valid users = %S, %D%w%S
        browseable = No
        read only = No
        inherit acls = Yes
        create mask = 0600

Maybe there is some equivalent to the NFS "hard,nocache" option in Samba that needs to be added? (I am not a Samba expert.)

Comment 2 W Sanders 2023-08-06 01:27:37 UTC

Update: I tried removing all the volatile Samba files on the server and restarting, that did not work. Next, I uninstalled Samba on the server and reinstalled it. That seems to have mode the problem go away. So I guess we can blame this on Samba and not Libreoffice. It would be nice to figure out how the file or its properties in Samba's database got into the state, since there didn't see to be any permission issues with the file, I could cat the file to /dev/null, etc.

Comment 3 danomois 2023-08-06 03:56:56 UTC

W Sanders - with your last comment below I am marking this resolved NotOurBug.

Thank you

Comment 4 W Sanders 2023-08-06 04:27:32 UTC

I downgraded to 7.4.7.2 and the problem presisted, so it's not a regression in Libreoffice.

Eventually this deteriorated into this error for several additional files: 

Error saving the document portfolio:
Object not accessible.
The object cannot be accessed
due to insufficient user rights.

As well as mayhem managing lock files (file XXX is open for writing by another.. , etc).

Mounting the CIFS shares with the "nobrl" (No bit range locking) seems to make this issue go away. The file server is Fedora Linux running Samba 4.18.5-0.fc38.

There are a lot of CIFS related bugs in the database. Although it can be closed, this bugs needs to remain visible somehow since mounting CIFS share with "nobrl" seems to be essential to getting Libreoffice to work with CIFS fileshares. It may stay this way foreever since I don't think there are any plans to implement BRL in the Linux Samba server.

Comment 5 W Sanders 2023-08-06 04:28:16 UTC

BTW can someone correct my typo in the bug title? Thanks.