Hello,

Unfortunately i couldnt fully get what you meant by your steps, so i'd suggest you attach a sample document and provide a new set of steps to reproduce, or alternatively do a screencast with Camstudio or screencast-o-matic.com.

If you arent familiar how table of contents works, please watch this video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjgQR2Bymkc

(In reply to Yousuf Philips (jay) from comment #1)
> Hello,
> 
> Unfortunately i couldnt fully get what you meant by your steps, so i'd
> suggest you attach a sample document and provide a new set of steps to
> reproduce, or alternatively do a screencast with Camstudio or
> screencast-o-matic.com.
> 
> If you arent familiar how table of contents works, please watch this video -
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjgQR2Bymkc

Hello.

I'm sorry. From your video, I can now definitely tell I was actually referring to Alphabetical Index, not Table of Contents. As stated before, my app is in portuguese, thus I confused the name of the tool I was using. Someone might need to update the title of this bug.

I see there's a similar video about Alphabetical Index from the same author here: https://youtu.be/mZbjtIamDlU . That's what I was using.

Unfortunately I don't have that version of LibreOffice anymore as I reverted to 5.1.5.2 which doesn't present this error, but now I got the right tool name, let me re-phrase the steps to reproduce and other info, below.

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Create an Alphabetical Index.
2. Highlight some text, add it as an entry to the Alphabetical Index. That text becomes highlighted grey. 
3. Update Alphabetical Index, the entries display normally. 
4. Save, close.
5. Re-open document. Alphabetical Index is untouched, but entries in text are no longer highlighted gray. 
6. Update Alphabetical Index, all entries disappear.

Actual Results:  
Alphabetical Index empty irreversibly, useless.

Expected Results:
Alphabetical Index full of cool entries I created.

Additional Info:
Important clarification: I had wrongly stated before this bug applies to Tables of Contents instead of Alphabetical Indexes. I was confused by the language of the app. This bug applies to Alphabetical Indexes and NOT Tables of Contents. Tables of Contents work fine on my end!
One strange behavior: upon trying to format Alphabetical Index by right clicking it and selecting "Edit Index/Table", application would return an error "idxexample.odt is in use", with three options: Open read-only, Open or Cancel. If I Open or Cancel, the dialog opens "empty", just the header with the close button and below it, a semi-transparent window with nothing on it. If I open read-only, dialog works normally. I found idxexample.odt, changed permissions to allow everyone and his brother to do whatever with the file. After this, this error went away, but it didn't solve the issue with the entries of Alphabetical Indexes disappearing.

Hi,

Thanks for the clarification. I've update the bug title to reflect your findings and will pass the issue onto my colleagues who are familiar with this feature. 

@Heiko, @Stuart, @Cor: Can you guys handle this. thanks.

Created attachment 128091 [details]
Dummy text with an alphabetical ToC

So lets discuss the issue on basis of an example. It contains dummy text; I made some words entries for the ToC and placed the alphabetical ToC at the end. 

When I understand you right you want to highlight parts of the ToC (did that for "and" after unchecking protection flag) and expect persistence. That works here for save/load. But when you update the index it will be rebuild completely meaning the yellow highlighting is cleared anyway. The auto update of fields is optional, see Tools > Options > Writer > General. But I'm not sure if that's the final solution for you.

Tested with
Version: 5.2.2.2.0+
Build ID: 5.2.2-2
CPU Threads: 8; OS Version: Linux 4.8; UI Render: default; 
Locale: en-US (en_US.UTF-8); Calc: group

> When I understand you right you want to highlight parts of the ToC (did that
> for "and" after unchecking protection flag) and expect persistence. That
> works here for save/load. But when you update the index it will be rebuild
> completely meaning the yellow highlighting is cleared anyway. The auto
> update of fields is optional, see Tools > Options > Writer > General. But
> I'm not sure if that's the final solution for you.


Hello,

Trying to clarify, I don't mean to highlight parts of the Alphabetical Index so they have a different background color. When I said highlight, I meant just when you mark the text with the mouse, in order to add them to the Alphabetical Index.

In order to add entries to the Alphabetical Index, you have to mark text with the mouse, then choose the option to add entry on the menu. Text marked like that stays highlighted gray so you know it's part of the Alphabetical Index. Then you update the Index, the entries appear there. On my experience, after save-close-reopen, the text that was marked grey is no longer (on the body of the document, not on the index), the index is complete until I update it, when it notices there's nothing marked as entries, so it reverts to empty.

In short, creating an index and adding entries works, then save-close-reopen, update index and all entries are gone.

Also note I used version 5.2.1.2 x64.

(In reply to r@fael.lv from comment #5)
> In short, creating an index and adding entries works, then
> save-close-reopen, update index and all entries are gone.

What happens when you load my document and update the index?

I had the same problem until I move to using a Concordance-File.sdi file.

(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #6)
> (In reply to r@fael.lv from comment #5)
> > In short, creating an index and adding entries works, then
> > save-close-reopen, update index and all entries are gone.
> 
> What happens when you load my document and update the index?

Set to NEEDINFO.
Change back to UNCONFIRMED after you have provided the information.

(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #6)
> (In reply to r@fael.lv from comment #5)
> > In short, creating an index and adding entries works, then
> > save-close-reopen, update index and all entries are gone.
> 
> What happens when you load my document and update the index?

As stated, unfortunately I don't have version 5.2.1.2 of the program anymore, because I need Writer for production. On my current bugless version, the problem doesn't happen, and your file displays correctly.

I can provide a file saved on 5.2.1.2 where there was an Alphabetical Index and all entries were lost upon close-reopen. Here.

Created attachment 128826 [details]
On page 137 there's Alphabetical Index. If you update it, it goes away.

Comment on attachment 128826 [details]
On page 137 there's Alphabetical Index. If you update it, it goes away.

Additional context: this document was saved with LibreOffice 5.2.1.2 Windows x64. I had been working on it for, well, over a year, on previous versions of LibreOficce (5.1.3.2 for example). When I updated to 5.2.1.2, upon saving this and any of my documents, closing and reopening, Alphabetical Indexes are lost. The problem on this file can be verified using other versions of LibreOffice (I'm using 5.1.3.2 now). Just open the document and try to update the Alphabetical Index, all entries disappear. Thus I'm thinking the problem is in saving the file on 5.2.1.2, because the Index itself was created with an earlier version of the program, then saved several times, no problem, then after saved once on 5.2.1.2, when reopened on any version of LibreOffice I tried, Index is gone.

(In reply to r@fael.lv from comment #9)
> As stated, unfortunately I don't have version 5.2.1.2 of the program
> anymore, because I need Writer for production. On my current bugless
> version, the problem doesn't happen, and your file displays correctly.

You can install versions in parallel with this tool: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/SI-GUI
http://tdf.io/siguiexe

Btw. this bug about disappearing index entries is fixed in 5.2.2: bug 100182

(In reply to r@fael.lv from comment #11)
>... thinking the problem is in saving the file on 5.2.1.2, 

Yes correct, as in bug 100182 it was broken during 5.2 development (2015-11-25) and a dataloss regression affecting the 5.2.0 -> 5.2.1 releases.

Patched by https://cgit.freedesktop.org/libreoffice/core/commit/?id=92b384b197b8f6c85127e277b10e09936d0c6021&h=libreoffice-5-2 and is correct now with 5.2.2+ release, as well for dev builds of master/5.3.0 after 2016-09-01.

You should be fine if you install current 5.2.3.3 release
http://downloadarchive.documentfoundation.org/libreoffice/old/5.2.3.3/win/

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 100182 ***

Dear Community,

I need Writer-Version 5.2.3.3 and 5.3.0.0.1 now.
There the problem is fixed.

Best regards, Helmut Wolff!

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 100182 ***

I wonder though, if such a game-breaking bug was known for months before I downloaded 5.2.1.2, why is it still available for download on official channels? That version should carefully be avoided by all, lest it stains even further the credibility of the platform as a whole.

(In reply to r@fael.lv from comment #16)
> I wonder though, if such a game-breaking bug was known for months before I
> downloaded 5.2.1.2, why is it still available for download on official
> channels? That version should carefully be avoided by all, lest it stains
> even further the credibility of the platform as a whole.

Every single version is available for download in https://downloadarchive.documentfoundation.org/libreoffice/old/ and I don't understand why that should change.

(In reply to r@fael.lv from comment #16)
> I wonder though, if such a game-breaking bug was known for months before I
> downloaded 5.2.1.2, why is it still available for download on official
> channels? That version should carefully be avoided by all, lest it stains
> even further the credibility of the platform as a whole.

5.2.1 release (5.2.1.2 build) was rolled 2016-08-25. It has been out of the mirror distribution network since 2016-09-26 with release of 5.2.2 (5.2.2.2 build). Not sure where or how often you check the project for updates.

Bug-fix releases on the Still and the Fresh branches occur once a month.

The current 5.2 branch build is 5.2.3 (5.2.3.3 build) which rolled 2016-10-31

Master development builds (what will be the next 5.3.0 release) are built and posted nightly.

(In reply to Buovjaga from comment #17)
> (In reply to r@fael.lv from comment #16)
> > I wonder though, if such a game-breaking bug was known for months before I
> > downloaded 5.2.1.2, why is it still available for download on official
> > channels? That version should carefully be avoided by all, lest it stains
> > even further the credibility of the platform as a whole.
> 
> Every single version is available for download in
> https://downloadarchive.documentfoundation.org/libreoffice/old/ and I don't
> understand why that should change.

I never touched that path to download LibreOffice, I'm talking about channels widely available for the general public, non-devs like me.

(In reply to V Stuart Foote from comment #18)
> (In reply to r@fael.lv from comment #16)
> > I wonder though, if such a game-breaking bug was known for months before I
> > downloaded 5.2.1.2, why is it still available for download on official
> > channels? That version should carefully be avoided by all, lest it stains
> > even further the credibility of the platform as a whole.
> 
> 5.2.1 release (5.2.1.2 build) was rolled 2016-08-25. It has been out of the
> mirror distribution network since 2016-09-26 with release of 5.2.2 (5.2.2.2
> build). Not sure where or how often you check the project for updates.
> 
> Bug-fix releases on the Still and the Fresh branches occur once a month.
> 
> The current 5.2 branch build is 5.2.3 (5.2.3.3 build) which rolled 2016-10-31
> 
> Master development builds (what will be the next 5.3.0 release) are built
> and posted nightly.

Right now, here's what you'll find on pt-br.libreoffice.org (where I downloaded 5.2.1.2, translation mine): 

> Available versions
> LibreOffice is available in the following versions:
>     5.1.6
>     5.2.2
>     5.2.3
> LibreOffice is available in the following pre-release versions:
>     5.3.0

So, three production versions. Whatever of those three I choose are called "Estável" (Stable). I downloaded it by early october, so, after 2016-09-26 it was somehow available on the official site as one of the stable releases, at least on the pt-br site. Perhaps this is a mistake on the pt-br devs (not being aware of a seriously buggy version), perhaps you do make a point of releasing any version according to schedule no matter how buggy, since all versions are known to have bugs to an extent. 

What I'm saying is, either of those scenarios should be avoided, in my humble opinion. That particular version was very dangerous for production use.