Description: While working on a spreadsheet, for example, I press F1 or select Help / LibreOffice Help. My default browser opens (Chrome in my case) and the right half of the help page loads instantly. There is then a delay of 22 seconds, with the progress indicator on the tab going round and round, before the topic list on the left of the help page opens. With the help page open, I can often recreate this delay by switching to another module using the Module drop-down menu. This is step does not consistently recreate the delay, however. Some modules never exhibit this delay, while others (predominantly Calc, Writer and Chart) re-create the delay maybe half of the occasions. I can get this problem in the Chrome and Edge browsers but not in the Firefox browser. So the bug is probably in the browser but only LibreOffice help seems to trigger it. Chrome Version 88.0.4324.190 (Official Build) (64-bit) Edge Version 89.0.774.50 (Official build) (64-bit) Firefox 85.0 (64-bit) I am using the downloaded help. Steps to Reproduce: 1. Open a document 2. Select Help | LibreOffice Help (With Chrome or Edge as the default browser) 3. Actual Results: There is then a delay of 22 seconds, with the progress indicator on the tab going round and round, before the topic list on the left of the help page opens. Expected Results: Help should open instantly, as it does with Firefox. Reproducible: Always User Profile Reset: No Additional Info: Version: 7.0.4.2 (x64) Build ID: dcf040e67528d9187c66b2379df5ea4407429775 CPU threads: 16; OS: Windows 10.0 Build 19041; UI render: Skia/Raster; VCL: win Locale: en-GB (en_GB); UI: en-GB Calc: CL
Confirmed, Firefox seems to load some prebuilt index. And on initial launch has the index in place. While Chrome/Edge both seem to not to cache the index and rebuild it on each launch with the delay noted. Once built, both seem equally robust. To me the online Help seems performant in any browser (assuming network connection). =-testing-= Version: 7.1.1.1 (x64) / LibreOffice Community Build ID: 575c5867c4cc13d7ae78f9ce39a54a52ed38c769 CPU threads: 4; OS: Windows 10.0 Build 19042; UI render: Skia/Vulkan; VCL: win Locale: en-US (en_US); UI: en-US Calc: threaded
Thanks for the confirmation, Stuart I had indeed thought that some kind of heavy time-consuming processing was going on to build the topic list, but a check with Task Manager shows that throughout the 22 seconds, the CPU percentage remains at 1% or 2% and the disk percentage remains at 0%. Resource manager also gives no clue of any heavy activity going on. Also, when using Firefox, the delay was not present even on the first use, so it can't be an issue of creating some kind of index on first use and then keeping it in a cache. My reason for installing the offline F1 help in the first place is in expectation of that being quicker than online F1 help (not that I've ever tried it). Is there a way to toggle between F1 giving offline help and online help so that I can judge the difference for myself? I've looked in Tools | Options but can't find such a toggle.
(In reply to Bill Sparrow from comment #2) > Is there a way to toggle between F1 giving offline help and online help so > that I can judge the difference for myself? I've looked in Tools | Options > but can't find such a toggle. No, but simple to uninstall the off-line help--it shows in appwiz.cpl as "LibreOffice [version] Help Pack".