Description: For documents with many links (I had one with at least 200), breaking links does not work reliably. If you close the file. The links come back. This is an issue for document release. If I'm editing the file, I want to keep links to images until I'm ready to release. Then I want to break the links and give the large Writer file to document control for release. Steps to Reproduce: 1. Make a writer document with lots of links to external files. In my case, for me this was easiest to write HTML code with all of the links, import to Writer, then save. 2. Edit...Links to External Files 3. In list box of links, select all links (ctl+A or shift select) and click Break Link 4. Save file 5. Close file 6. Open File. Links are still in file. Actual Results: Links persist in file Expected Results: Links should be removed from file and all images should be embedded. Reproducible: Always User Profile Reset: No Additional Info: The problem may revolve around updating links before they are broken. A workaround is 1. select many links at a time 2. click Update. after update is complete only first link from selection remains highlighted. 3. select a different link (e.g. one item below currently selected item) 4. select the same links from step 1. 5. click Break Links button. 6. save file. You may have to close and open file several times before all of the links are scrubbed.
Please, could you provide a test file ? Status has been set to NEEDINFO, please set it back to UNCONFIRMED once requested information has been provided. Best regards. JBF
Created attachment 170350 [details] test file to reproduce problem This file reproduces problem for me. There are links to 100 images on ImageMagick website. File size is 24k. If you break links to images, file size should be much larger than 24k when you save. But file size remains the same, because links do no get properly broken.
(In reply to wpeaton4 from comment #2) > Created attachment 170350 [details] > test file to reproduce problem > > This file reproduces problem for me. There are links to 100 images on > ImageMagick website. File size is 24k. If you break links to images, file > size should be much larger than 24k when you save. But file size remains the > same, because links do no get properly broken. Thank you for the test file. It works for me if I force LibreOffice to load all the images. When all images are visible in the document, you can safely disconnect all links. To force LibreOffice to load linked images, go to menu Edit > Links to External Files > select links to images to be loaded then click Update button. This operation may take some time depending on the server from which images are downloaded, the bandwith of your Internet connection and your computer, mainly its RAM. With your test file, when all images are disconnected, if you save the document you get a 19.3 MB file. So, for me there is no bug here, and if some links are still there when you reopen the file, that prove that LO is safe enough to not remove a link for which it has had not enough time to load the linked image. Closing as WorksForMe. Please feel free to reopen if you disagree. Best regards. JBF
I disagree that this is expected behavior. A propose that only the most motivated user would be able to figure the workaround that files must first be Updated before the links can be broken. I do a lot of computer support and I would guess that maybe 1 in 100 people would even come close to finding this workaround. What would be better is if LibreOffice could automatically update the links behind the scenes. Alternately, LO could disable the Break Links button if links are not updated. This alternate solution is a little awkward because behavior gets weird when there are multiple selections and some links are updated and some are not.
stumbled upon a similar problem, break links doesn't work even with very few links. links to invisible small online gifs - hyperlink - probably injected by copy/paste data from my bank account into cells couldn't be removed. what do the gifs mean? probably insane programming, probably bad copy/paste of firefox (dev-edition), probably 'hidden tracking'. edit - links to external files - break link removes them for the actual session, but they reappear after save-load cycle. visible in the navigator under images, but nothing to remove. causing crashes for 7.2 dev ver. of 2021-04-29. got em removed by editing the content.xml and removing '<table:shapes> ... </table:shapes>'. definitively not an option for big files or 'normal' users. the removed text was (slightly obfuscated reg. privacy and readability): <table:shapes><draw:frame draw:z-index="0" draw:name="https://www.my-bank-name-obfuscated.de/banking-private/resource/xhtml-filler?rzbk=7529&rzid=XC&style=bvr2014" draw:style-name="gr1" draw:text-style-name="P1" svg:width="0.011cm" svg:height="0.011cm" svg:x="72.016cm" svg:y="12.954cm"><draw:image xlink:href="Pictures/10000200000000010000000[obfuscated]195F7.gif" xlink:type="simple" xlink:show="embed" xlink:actuate="onLoad"><text:p/></draw:image> [ ... manually inserted break to show repetition ... ] </draw:frame><draw:frame draw:z-index="1" draw:name="https://www.my-bank-name-obfuscated.de/banking-private/resource/xhtml-filler?rzbk=7529&rzid=XC&style=bvr2014" draw:style-name="gr1" draw:text-style-name="P1" svg:width="0.011cm" svg:height="0.011cm" svg:x="72.016cm" svg:y="12.954cm"><draw:image xlink:href="Pictures/10000200000000010000000[obfuscated]195F7.gif" xlink:type="simple" xlink:show="embed" xlink:actuate="onLoad"><text:p/></draw:image></draw:frame> [ ... manually inserted break to show repetition ... ] <draw:frame draw:z-index="2" draw:name="https://www.my-bank-name-obfuscated.de/banking-private/resource/xhtml-filler?rzbk=7529&rzid=XC&style=bvr2014" draw:style-name="gr1" draw:text-style-name="P1" svg:width="0.011cm" svg:height="0.011cm" svg:x="72.016cm" svg:y="13.313cm"><draw:image xlink:href="Pictures/10000200000000010000000[obfuscated]195F7.gif" xlink:type="simple" xlink:show="embed" xlink:actuate="onLoad"><text:p/></draw:image></draw:frame></table:shapes>
Not sure if that is the same problem. Please, could you provide a test file? Status has been set to NEEDINFO, please set it back to UNCONFIRMED once requested information has been provided. Best regards. JBF
I wanted to make a new version of a book I wrote in Writer around 2016. My master document has 16 chapters with 68 images linked in (as distinct from embedded). The odt file is 6.4 MB and the images total another 5.4 MB, they are b&w line drawings in png format. My standard practice which I've carried out many times over the last few years (but not in the past year) is to make a copy of my book-document.odt file and then to break the links in that copy so that the images are embedded. Then I save the file and move the copy to a new directory and prepare the new edition. This time, however, the link breaking didn't work fully. To break the links, I go Edit > 'Links to external files', highlight all the links and click "Break link". Checking on Edit then shows 'Links to external files' greyed out and right-clicking on any image and checking the properties doesn't show any path for the image. So all looked good and it appeared that the links had been broken and the images were embedded. After moving to a new directory, the first 7 chapters were ok but the remainder showed missing images. Moving the file back to its original directory got all the missing images back again and Edit > 'Links to external files' showed that half the images were, in fact, still linked. Various trials showed that breaking the links 1 or 2 at a time worked (as did right-click on the image and then 'Replace'). Attempting to break four or more links at a stroke appeared to work but saving, closing and reopening the file (without even moving to a new directory) show that the links are all still present. I have repeated these trials many times using both LO 6.4.7.2 on UbuntuStudio 20.4.2 and also LO 7.1.2.2 on Windows10. The result is always as I've described above. So I don't suspect a fault in my installations but I do wonder if something has changed within Writer since I made my original file in 2016 relative to the linking process? Prior to making my copy of the original file, I made a few corrections and minor editorial changes but nothing touching any of the images. I see that J-B Faure mentions waiting for all images to load and then selecting images and clicking 'Update'. I had all images displayed correctly in the open document - it takes a mere few seconds. But in Edit > Links to External Files, no matter whether I select 1, 2 or all links, the Update options are greyed out. I see that there are two options 'Automatic' and 'Manual' and Manual appears to be selected but the options are all greyed out and not available to me. I got tired of closing and reopening the file after breaking 2 links and ended up completing the task by use of the right-click and 'Replace' option.
Created attachment 172413 [details] A zip file containing an LO Writer doc and three png images To reproduce failure to break links, make a copy of the .odt file and use that copy to break the links (Edit > Links to external files). I find that with only a few images in the doc, the link breakage works most times but I've doubled them all up so the .odt file contains 14 images. My attempts usually result in about 6 links being broken and the rest stay put although they appear to have gone until the document is closed and reopened (or reloaded). In the real world, I'm working with longer files with around 60 to 100 images.
Philip, I suggest you try my workaround. Replacing all images is too tedious. 1. Click on Edit...Links to External Files menu item 2. For links you want to break, first select them in the list box. Then press Update button. When update is complete, only the top item will be selected. 3. Select links again and press Break Link button. After this, the links generally stay broken. I usually break about 10 or 20 links at a time. Often I miss a few. For ~100 links, it probably takes me 10 to 15 minutes or more to break all of the links, save the file. Reopen file and break any links I missed.
[Automated Action] NeedInfo-To-Unconfirmed
Reproduced using : Version: 7.1.3.2 / LibreOffice Community Build ID: 10(Build:2) CPU threads: 4; OS: Linux 5.12; UI render: default; VCL: gtk3 Locale: fr-FR (fr_FR.UTF-8); UI: fr-FR Calc: threaded
*** Bug 154064 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Issue is inherited, reproduced in OOo 3.3.
*** Bug 156386 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***