Bug 156624 - LibreOffice (writer) crashes intermittently on FIND after following hyperlink
Summary: LibreOffice (writer) crashes intermittently on FIND after following hyperlink
Status: RESOLVED INSUFFICIENTDATA
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Writer (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
7.4.7.2 release
Hardware: All Windows (All)
: medium normal
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2023-08-04 21:21 UTC by Dave Lovelace
Modified: 2024-03-18 03:12 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

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Crash report or crash signature:


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Description Dave Lovelace 2023-08-04 21:21:02 UTC
I'm not sure which of the Hardware entries I'm supposed to choose.  Below is the information I got.  According to Windows System Information, the processor is:
Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4590 CPU @ 3.30GHz, 3301 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s)

I'm running Windows 10.  This is a Dell Optiplex 3020, but I think I've seen this on a Dell 9010 as well.

Here's what LibreOffice Writer Help->About shows:
Version: 7.4.7.2 (x64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 723314e595e8007d3cf785c16538505a1c878ca5
CPU threads: 4; OS: Windows 10.0 Build 19045; UI render: Skia/Raster; VCL: win
Locale: en-US (en_US); UI: en-US
Calc: CL

The problem is intermittent but very frequent.  LibreOffice (Writer) is crashing on me, many times a day when I am working on this.  I've been telling it to send crash reports.

I use bookmarks a LOT (which apparently the software maintainers don't, from the fact that easily reproducible bugs have gone unfixed for many years).

Recently I have been trying to set and update a large table of hyperlinks to many of these bookmarks, adding or modifying the bookmarks and then adding or modifying the hyperlinks.  This is all within a single 300+-page document.  I test that the hyperlinks are correct by ctl-clicking on one.  At that point, or sometimes after I have just entered a bookmark, I want to return to the point in my table (outline) of hyperlinks where I originated.  (IT WOULD BE REALLY NICE IF THERE WERE A GOOD WAY TO RETURN TO THE HYPERLINK I HAD JUST INVOKED--equivalent to a backarrow; but if there is one I have been unable to find it!)

What I have come up with is to put a string of random characters near my position in the hyperlinks.  When I'm done at the point where the bookmark is, I do a FIND on that string.  After the first time, I'm usually using ctl-shift-F to repeat the find.

As I said, by no means every time, but many times a day if I'm working on this, Writer just crashes and has to restart.  I see no pattern to when it happens and when it doesn't.  But it's slowing me down.  I need this outline of hyperlinks to let me find my way around for actual productive work, but it keeps crashing.

I hope the crash reports (you should have several days' worth) will let someone see why this happens.  A simple return-to-hyperlink function might solve this; I can't help feeling that it's a stack overflow issue of some kind, but I don't KNOW.  The time to restart L-O and get back to where I was working last is eating a lot of time, besides being very, very frustrating.  OTOH, I have no way to tell someone how to reproduce it.
Comment 1 m_a_riosv 2023-08-05 07:53:10 UTC
Please test in safe mode, Menu/Help/Restart in Safe Mode
Comment 2 Julien Nabet 2023-08-05 08:12:34 UTC
Also, please upgrade to LO 7.5.5
Comment 3 Dave Lovelace 2023-08-19 16:18:34 UTC
(In reply to m.a.riosv from comment #1)
> Please test in safe mode, Menu/Help/Restart in Safe Mode

I tried it.  The error did not manifest itself, but it is sufficiently erratic that this proves nothing.  The environment is much less readable and thus less useful.

Worse:  I worked for quite a while in safe mode and saved my document, after a crash.  The next time I opened my document--not in safe mode--it went back to the crash and threw away all my work!  I'm very, very disinclined to ever try THAT again!
Comment 4 Dave Lovelace 2023-08-19 16:26:40 UTC
(In reply to Julien Nabet from comment #2)
> Also, please upgrade to LO 7.5.5

I've reported quite a few bugs.  Not once has an up-rev accomplished anything.  Many of those bugs are still present years later.  I'm sorry, I'm not going to do this.  Apparently the bugs I report are not considered serious by the developers to be serious enough to actually follow up on.  

(THIS one is admittedly a hard one to follow up on, since it is intermittent, very much so.  I realize it's kind of a handful of nothing.  But others which are easily reproduced have not been fixed after several years.  If bugs aren't worth the effort to follow up on, then it's not worth my time to go through the process of up-rev on the off chance that some other change somewhere might have fixed the bug, given that I lose a lot of history.)
Comment 5 Julien Nabet 2023-08-19 16:38:57 UTC
(In reply to Dave Lovelace from comment #4)
> (In reply to Julien Nabet from comment #2)
> > Also, please upgrade to LO 7.5.5
> 
> I've reported quite a few bugs.  Not once has an up-rev accomplished
> anything.  Many of those bugs are still present years later.  I'm sorry, I'm
> not going to do this.  Apparently the bugs I report are not considered
> serious by the developers to be serious enough to actually follow up on.  
> ...

I could ask you if it's specific to one peculiar file or any file but since you don't know how to reproduce this at will, I suppose it's impossible to know this.

I don't know too if you work on odt or doc/docx file but if you work on the last one, perhaps you should buy and use MsOffice or use Google Docs.
Comment 6 Dave Lovelace 2023-08-19 16:41:34 UTC
I have one additional piece of data.  Because the problem manifested itself (when it did) on trying to do a repeat-last-find, I was trying to remember to always just reopen the Find box and then searching.  Yesterday this also produced a crash.

Yesterday was a pretty dismal day in general.  I had to restart about every five or ten minutes due to crashes.  As I am adding or modifying links to bookmarks, and sometimes the bookmarks themselves as well, I can't help wondering whether the sheer number of bookmarks and/or links is related.  If so, it's not some kind of absolute limit.  And as I presently have a lot of other things open, it's at least possible that there's something involved like a memory leak in L-O.  (The document I'm dealing with is quite large, with dozens and dozens (possibly hundreds) of bookmarks and of links to them.  I would give an exact count if there were any way to obtain one besides counting by hand.)


And one comment on the "Note to Bug Reporter:
This bug is (most likely) in NEEDINFO status because someone has asked for information or data. After you've satisfied the request as best as you can, please leave a comment and change the status back to UNCONFIRMED.":

As far as I know, no one as asked for any information.  Running in safe mode does not provide any actual information except "Well, it didn't crash in that hour."  I'm very confident that an up-rev will not solve the problem.  But I hesitate to change the status back.
Comment 7 Dave Lovelace 2023-08-19 16:43:32 UTC
(In reply to Julien Nabet from comment #5)
> 
> I don't know too if you work on odt or doc/docx file but if you work on the
> last one, perhaps you should buy and use MsOffice or use Google Docs.

This is an odt.  As far as possible, I avoid doc/docx and all the others.
Comment 8 m_a_riosv 2023-08-19 18:15:32 UTC
If in save mode doesn't, maybe something corrupted in your profile, sometimes happen updating.

Please test with a clean profile in normal mode, Menu/Help/Restart in Safe Mode, if it is fine, don't recover the actual profile.

BTW, you can test with a new version 7.4 is EOL, 7.5 is mature enough.
Comment 9 QA Administrators 2024-02-16 03:13:02 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 10 QA Administrators 2024-03-18 03:12:34 UTC
Dear Dave Lovelace,

Please read this message in its entirety before proceeding.

Your bug report is being closed as INSUFFICIENTDATA due to inactivity and
a lack of information which is needed in order to accurately
reproduce and confirm the problem. We encourage you to retest
your bug against the latest release. If the issue is still
present in the latest stable release, we need the following
information (please ignore any that you've already provided):

a) Provide details of your system including your operating
   system and the latest version of LibreOffice that you have
   confirmed the bug to be present

b) Provide easy to reproduce steps – the simpler the better

c) Provide any test case(s) which will help us confirm the problem

d) Provide screenshots of the problem if you think it might help

e) Read all comments and provide any requested information

Once all of this is done, please set the bug back to UNCONFIRMED
and we will attempt to reproduce the issue. Please do not:

a) respond via email 

b) update the version field in the bug or any of the other details
   on the top section of our bug tracker

Warm Regards,
QA Team

MassPing-NeedInfo-FollowUp