Bug 166288 - Attempts to activate US English Thesaurus results in black error screen with lots of text explaining error
Summary: Attempts to activate US English Thesaurus results in black error screen with ...
Status: NEEDINFO
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Writer (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
24.8.6.2 release
Hardware: x86-64 (AMD64) Linux (All)
: medium normal
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2025-04-21 19:44 UTC by Farakh Jamil
Modified: 2026-01-27 12:35 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


Attachments
Screenshot of the error screen (154.02 KB, image/png)
2025-04-21 19:48 UTC, Farakh Jamil
Details

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Description Farakh Jamil 2025-04-21 19:44:42 UTC
Description:
I am using the latest Manjaro Linux. I did not find a US English thesaurus in LO Writer so I searched online and began following instructions on LO website but without any useful results. So I began exploring web search results and found 'mythes-en' mentioned on the Arch Linux website. I installed 'mythes-en' via CLI on my HP Core i7 Probook laptop. Now when I start LO Writer I get a black screen with the description of the error which seems to be Java related. I have a partial screenshot of the said screen.

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Start LibreOffice Writer
2.
3.

Actual Results:
Two windows open up. The first is a regular Writer blank page. The second pops up right after this and stays visible until minimized. It is a black screen with white text on it which explains the error. I have a screenshot of it. It begins with the following text:

An error has occurred in WritingTool 1.1.1 (2025-01-10 08:46:56 +0000):
java.lang.RuntimeException: Could not activate rules
Stacktrace:
java.lang.RuntimeException: Could not activate rules
at org.languagetool.JLanguageTool.<init>(JLanguageTool.java:319)
at org.languagetool.JLanguageTool.<init>(JLanguageTool.java:278)
at org.languagetool.JLanguageTool.<init>(JLanguageTool.java:338)
and so on and so forth......

Expected Results:
Working on the white normal screen with the black error screen in the background.
I tried to run it in Safe Mode and even reset the LO to Factory Setting but it did not solve the problem. I will now try to uninstall and reinstall LibreOffice and see if it works.


Reproducible: Always


User Profile Reset: Yes

Additional Info:
[Information automatically included from LibreOffice]
Locale: en-US
Module: TextDocument
[Information guessed from browser]
OS: Linux (All)
OS is 64bit: yes
Version: 24.8.6.2 (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 480(Build:2)
CPU threads: 4; OS: Linux 6.12; UI render: default; VCL: kf6 (cairo+xcb)
Locale: en-US (en_US.UTF-8); UI: en-US
24.8.6-1
Calc: threaded
Comment 1 Farakh Jamil 2025-04-21 19:48:57 UTC
Created attachment 200450 [details]
Screenshot of the error screen
Comment 2 Farakh Jamil 2025-04-22 15:56:59 UTC
1) I opened LO Writer in Safe Mode and reset it to factory settings but that has not removed the error message.
2) I uninstalled LibreOffice and re-installed it again without restarting my laptop but that did not resolve the problem.
Comment 3 Olivier Hallot 2025-04-22 18:48:35 UTC
---------------8<---------------
An error has occurred in WritingTool 1.1.1 (2025-01-10 08:46:56 +0000):
java.lang.RuntimeException: Could not activate rules
Stacktrace:
java.lang.RuntimeException: Could not activate rules
at org.languagetool.JLanguageTool.<init>(JLanguageTool.java:319)
at org.languagetool.JLanguageTool.<init>(JLanguageTool.java:278)
at org.languagetool.JLanguageTool.<init>(JLanguageTool.java:338)
and so on and so forth......

---------------8<---------------

Please while in safe mode, uninstall WritingTool to restore your working copy of LO.

you can invoke LO in CLI with soffice --safe-mode
Comment 4 Farakh Jamil 2025-04-24 07:41:27 UTC
Thank you for the advice Olivier Hallot. I did run LO in Safe Mode to uninstall Writing Tool, but it does not show up in Safe Mode. It does show up in normal mode and I did uninstall it and the problem has gone away. Thank you again. Please advise (if it is relevant to ask here) how do I install and use the English Thesaurus, the search for which had generated the error in the first place.
Comment 5 QA Administrators 2025-11-25 15:26:56 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 6 QA Administrators 2025-11-25 15:38:42 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 7 Buovjaga 2026-01-27 12:35:57 UTC
WritingTool 26.1 was released a couple of weeks ago: https://github.com/writingtool-org/writingtool/releases

It will detect most incorrect settings upon startup and attempt to reconfigure them so that WritingTool works.

Do you have any issues with it?

There are some known issues, sadly without any solution:
https://github.com/writingtool-org/writingtool/issues/114
https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=165489