Bug 111635 - OFFLINE HELPS (English US x64) install fine, but LibreOffice x64 says it isn't installed!
Summary: OFFLINE HELPS (English US x64) install fine, but LibreOffice x64 says it isn'...
Status: NEW
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Installation (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
6.4.3.2 release
Hardware: x86-64 (AMD64) Windows (All)
: medium normal
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords: accessibility
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2017-08-10 13:35 UTC by DavidC
Modified: 2022-04-25 03:26 UTC (History)
0 users

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:

Attachments
image file- help for libreOffice offline use (90.43 KB, image/png)
2017-10-13 02:05 UTC, Aschalew 		Details
LibreOffice 6.4 - Offline Help not working (149.67 KB, image/png)
2020-04-24 22:08 UTC, R Hilbert 		Details
Show Obsolete (1) View All Add an attachment (proposed patch, testcase, etc.)

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Description DavidC 2017-08-10 13:35:03 UTC 
Description:
I just did a clean install of LibreOffice-x64 v5.4.03 on a Windows10 Pro (i7, 8GB) machine.
Also installed the LibreOffice-x64 Offline Helps for English USA.
Both install just fine.
BUT, in LibreOffice, when I click Help-LibreOffice Help, it says, "The Offline Helps have not been installed yet. Do I want to use the Online Helps?" 
NOTE: I also installed the x32 version of the Helps, just to see if the LO-x64 version was looking in the wrong place. But not difference.


Actual Results:  
In LibreOffice Base and Writer screens (I haven't tried other apps), when I click the menu Help--LibreOffice Help, it says, "The Offline Helps have not been installed yet. Do I want to use the Online Helps?"

Expected Results:
LibreOffice v5.4 Offline helps should be recognized as installed by LibreOffice 5.4.03.


Reproducible: Always

User Profile Reset: No

Additional Info:
We frequently work in a remote area of the world (Indonesia), we and the local team members all use LibreOffice. Great software. But because this is a remote area, internet connectivity is ZERO. It is VITAL to us (and many others) that the OFFLINE helps work, for all language packs. BTW, we've noticed the Indonesian Offline helps hasn't worked for years; it always tries to go to the Internet. This is an urgent need for us. I'm sure others think it is minor, but for many it is critical to have help without the Internet. Thanks.


User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/52.0.2743.116 Safari/537.36 Edge/15.15063
Comment 1 fjpbone 2017-10-12 21:16:26 UTC 
I have the same problem after installing 5.4.2.2 (64-bit, English-UK) on Windows 10 Home. Tried uninstall/reinstall, problem still present.
Comment 2 Aschalew 2017-10-13 02:04:03 UTC 
It doesn't Reproduce: 

Windows 10  X64
LibreOffice:
      Version: 5.4.2.2 (x64)
      Build ID: 22b09f6418e8c2d508a9eaf86b2399209b0990f4
      CPU threads: 8; OS: Windows 6.19; UI render: default; 
      Locale: en-US (en_US); Calc: group

Description:
I have installed LibreOffice(en_US) fresh version, 5.4.2.2 and initially LibreOffice help was not working saying that ""The Offline Helps have not been installed".

but after the following steps it worked 
Steps: 
1. Download LibreOffice Built in help in English (US), Help for offline use.
2. install it
3. restart LibreOffice
Comment 3 Aschalew 2017-10-13 02:05:42 UTC 
Created attachment 136942 [details]
image file- help for libreOffice offline use
Comment 4 QA Administrators 2018-10-14 02:56:53 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 5 R Hilbert 2020-04-24 21:46:56 UTC 
LibreOffice 6.4 Help Pack (Offline help) is not working when installed on LibreOffice 6.4.

1.  This is a clean install of LibreOffice [no existing LibreOffice or OpenOffice installed on an otherwise perfectly working machine], however Microsoft Office 2003 is installed and is being used to write these notes.

Note:  No other [country] help files are installed, no other languages are installed.  Both program installations are essentially the defaults (no extensions have yet been installed).

2.  Details:

Operating System:  Windows 7 64bit 
LibreOffice version:  6.4.3  (file:  LibreOffice_6.4.3_Win_x64.msi,  312,619,008 bytes)
LibreOffice Help Pack version:  6.4.3  (file:  LibreOffice_6.4.3_Win_x64.msiLibreOffice_6.4.3_Win_x64_helppack_en-US.msi,  2,134,016 bytes)

2.1 LibO Language Settings:

User Interface:  Default – English (Australia)
Local Setting:  English (Australia)
Default Languages for Docs:  Default – English (Australia). 

3.  The Problem:  

-  LibreOffice 6.4 installs perfectly and runs OK.
-  LibreOffice Help Pack 6.4 appears to install OK (there's no error message during installation) but it fails to work— in that there is no offline help.
-  'Help' generates an online request to the browser (it does this with or without the Help Pack being installed).
-  When 'Help' fails to get the online 'help' it then tries to load the installed offline help files.  From the web browser that local address is:  

file:///C:/Program%20Files/LibreOffice/help/index.html?Target=swriter/.uno%3AHelpIndex&Language=en-US&System=WIN&Version=6.4 (see attached image)

-  There is NO "index.html" file at directory:  "C:/Program Files/LibreOffice/help" even though all the help files were installed under two under subdirectories:  "en-US" and "media"   (see attached image).

-  Note:  There is *NO* "Australian Help" file to install, so the "US help" or "UK" has to suffice/do.

-  Changing the language settings from the defaults (as per #2.1) does not help.  No combination of country "User Interface", "Local Settings, etc. works.

-  Moving files around in the "C:/Program Files/LibreOffice/help" does not help either (move them up one level so there's an "index.html" in the "<…>/help" directory does not work either.  Similarly, creating an "en-AU" and copying the "en-US" help files into that directory do not work either.

In much older versions of LibreOffice, manually moving the help files around in the "Help" and "Help" subdirectories 'somehow' eventually got 'Help' to work, but this manual fix no longer works in this version.

4.  Comment

It seems that unless the O/S, "User Interface" and "Locale" settings are all the same then the "Help Pack" just doesn’t work!  This is not possible in Australia because almost every installation of Windows together and a multitude of programs use the combination of the "US Interface", "US Keyboard" and "Country Locale"—"Australia".  LibO is one of the very rare exceptions that does not work in these situations.  As you do not support an "Australian help" file then we have no other choice but to use US or UK "Help" files.

(Please Note:  In the past (before we had an Australian dictionary), it was a major undertaking to get the UK dictionary to work for the same reasons.) 

This offline "Help Pack" problem has been with LibreOffice as long as I can remember.  Furthermore, before LibreOffice, the same bug also existed in "OpenOffice".

What on earth is going on, what the hell are you doing that such a simple problem as this can continue to exist for a decade or more without being fixed?  When the average user installs a "Help" file it should just work no matter what language is installed—the installation should be both smooth and transparent to user. Then, even if the file is the wrong one, it at least works (at least the user then knows he has to locate the correct one).

The failure of the "Help Pack" (Offline help) to work consistently for well over a decade means that it is a major unresolved bug,  It's very significant problem for the very reason that a user may not even be aware the help program has been installed.  Right, he/she may not even know the program exists on the PC (if you have ever managed a Help Desk, then you'll realise what problems that this can cause).

The big question is why users have had to put up with this extremely annoying and temperamental bug for years and years and yet it is STILL not fixed.  It's now reached the point that with every LibreOffice upgrade we users know with almost certainty that "Help" is not going to work—and right it doesn't!  For those users who haven't gone back to MSO and still persevere with LibreOffice It has become a joke and farce.

What is so annoying about this bug is that over the years, users have winged about it and made post after posts about it and yet LibreOffice programmers continue to just to ignore it.  The question is why.  Like many around me, this PC STILL has MS Office 2003 on it because of dozens of simple idiosyncrasies within LibreOffice that continue to be ignored year after year.  The fact is many of us are desperately trying to get rid of MS Office but we cannot yet do so as LibreOffice is still not ready.

I cannot stress enough how this "Help Pack" problem annoys many people in this country, here it's a standing joke that "when you install LibreOffice then you'd better keep MSO's installation disk handy as you're bound to need it".

There are other problems too (e.g: difficulty with inserting images, etc.) but I'll leave those comments for later.
Comment 6 R Hilbert 2020-04-24 22:08:15 UTC 
Created attachment 159910 [details]
LibreOffice 6.4 - Offline Help not working
Comment 7 R Hilbert 2020-04-24 22:13:30 UTC 
LibreOffice 6.4 Help Pack (Offline help) is not working when installed on LibreOffice 6.4.

1.  This is a clean install of LibreOffice [no existing LibreOffice or OpenOffice installed on an otherwise perfectly working machine], however Microsoft Office 2003 is installed and is being used to write these notes.

Note:  No other [country] help files are installed, no other languages are installed.  Both program installations are essentially the defaults (no extensions have yet been installed).

2.  Details:

Operating System:  Windows 7 64bit 
LibreOffice version:  6.4.3  (file:  LibreOffice_6.4.3_Win_x64.msi,  312,619,008 bytes)
LibreOffice Help Pack version:  6.4.3  (file:  LibreOffice_6.4.3_Win_x64.msiLibreOffice_6.4.3_Win_x64_helppack_en-US.msi,  2,134,016 bytes)

2.1 LibO Language Settings:

User Interface:  Default – English (Australia)
Local Setting:  English (Australia)
Default Languages for Docs:  Default – English (Australia). 

3.  The Problem:  

-  LibreOffice 6.4 installs perfectly and runs OK.
-  LibreOffice Help Pack 6.4 appears to install OK (there's no error message during installation) but it fails to work— in that there is no offline help.
-  'Help' generates an online request to the browser (it does this with or without the Help Pack being installed).
-  When 'Help' fails to get the online 'help' it then tries to load the installed offline help files.  From the web browser that local address is:  

file:///C:/Program%20Files/LibreOffice/help/index.html?Target=swriter/.uno%3AHelpIndex&Language=en-US&System=WIN&Version=6.4 (see attached image)

-  There is NO "index.html" file at directory:  "C:/Program Files/LibreOffice/help" even though all the help files were installed under two under subdirectories:  "en-US" and "media"   (see attached image).

-  Note:  There is *NO* "Australian Help" file to install, so the "US help" or "UK" has to suffice/do.

-  Changing the language settings from the defaults (as per #2.1) does not help.  No combination of country "User Interface", "Local Settings, etc. works.

-  Moving files around in the "C:/Program Files/LibreOffice/help" does not help either (move them up one level so there's an "index.html" in the "<…>/help" directory does not work either.  Similarly, creating an "en-AU" and copying the "en-US" help files into that directory do not work either.

In much older versions of LibreOffice, manually moving the help files around in the "Help" and "Help" subdirectories 'somehow' eventually got 'Help' to work, but this manual fix no longer works in this version.

4.  Comment

It seems that unless the O/S, "User Interface" and "Locale" settings are all the same then the "Help Pack" just doesn’t work!  This is not possible in Australia because almost every installation of Windows together and a multitude of programs use the combination of the "US Interface", "US Keyboard" and "Country Locale"—"Australia".  LibO is one of the very rare exceptions that does not work in these situations.  As you do not support an "Australian help" file then we have no other choice but to use US or UK "Help" files.

(Please Note:  In the past (before we had an Australian dictionary), it was a major undertaking to get the UK dictionary to work for the same reasons.) 

This offline "Help Pack" problem has been with LibreOffice as long as I can remember.  Furthermore, before LibreOffice, the same bug also existed in "OpenOffice".

What on earth is going on, what the hell are you doing that such a simple problem as this can continue to exist for a decade or more without being fixed?  When the average user installs a "Help" file it should just work no matter what language is installed—the installation should be both smooth and transparent to user. Then, even if the file is the wrong one, it at least works (at least the user then knows he has to locate the correct one).

The failure of the "Help Pack" (Offline help) to work consistently for well over a decade means that it is a major unresolved bug,  It's very significant problem for the very reason that a user may not even be aware the help program has been installed.  Right, he/she may not even know the program exists on the PC (if you have ever managed a Help Desk, then you'll realise what problems that this can cause).

The big question is why users have had to put up with this extremely annoying and temperamental bug for years and years and yet it is STILL not fixed.  It's now reached the point that with every LibreOffice upgrade we users know with almost certainty that "Help" is not going to work—and right it doesn't!  For those users who haven't gone back to MSO and still persevere with LibreOffice It has become a joke and farce.

What is so annoying about this bug is that over the years, users have winged about it and made post after posts about it and yet LibreOffice programmers continue to just to ignore it.  The question is why.  Like many around me, this PC STILL has MS Office 2003 on it because of dozens of simple idiosyncrasies within LibreOffice that continue to be ignored year after year.  The fact is many of us are desperately trying to get rid of MS Office but we cannot yet do so as LibreOffice is still not ready.

I cannot stress enough how this "Help Pack" problem annoys many people in this country, here it's a standing joke that "when you install LibreOffice then you'd better keep MSO's installation disk handy as you're bound to need it".

There are other problems too (e.g: difficulty with inserting images, etc.) but I'll leave those comments for later.
Comment 8 QA Administrators 2022-04-25 03:26:29 UTC 
Dear DavidC,

To make sure we're focusing on the bugs that affect our users today, LibreOffice QA is asking bug reporters and confirmers to retest open, confirmed bugs which have not been touched for over a year.

There have been thousands of bug fixes and commits since anyone checked on this bug report. During that time, it's possible that the bug has been fixed, or the details of the problem have changed. We'd really appreciate your help in getting confirmation that the bug is still present.

If you have time, please do the following:

Test to see if the bug is still present with the latest version of LibreOffice from https://www.libreoffice.org/download/

If the bug is present, please leave a comment that includes the information from Help - About LibreOffice.
 
If the bug is NOT present, please set the bug's Status field to RESOLVED-WORKSFORME and leave a comment that includes the information from Help - About LibreOffice.

Please DO NOT

Update the version field
Reply via email (please reply directly on the bug tracker)
Set the bug's Status field to RESOLVED - FIXED (this status has a particular meaning that is not 
appropriate in this case)


If you want to do more to help you can test to see if your issue is a REGRESSION. To do so:
1. Download and install oldest version of LibreOffice (usually 3.3 unless your bug pertains to a feature added after 3.3) from https://downloadarchive.documentfoundation.org/libreoffice/old/

2. Test your bug
3. Leave a comment with your results.
4a. If the bug was present with 3.3 - set version to 'inherited from OOo';
4b. If the bug was not present in 3.3 - add 'regression' to keyword


Feel free to come ask questions or to say hello in our QA chat: https://web.libera.chat/?settings=#libreoffice-qa

Thank you for helping us make LibreOffice even better for everyone!

Warm Regards,
QA Team

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