Create a table in Writer and put the cursor in it. You see the toolbar where you can do several actions with the table. However, in the Menu these entries are disabled. You can't use any menu entry except Table->Insert->Table and Formula. I'm on Ubuntu 12.04 with Unity.
This happens in Unity only. Just tested with Gnome, there the menu works fine.
Could you please retest on Ubuntu 13.04 with version currently in the libreoffice PPA: https://launchpad.net/~libreoffice/+archive/ppa
Trying this with 4.0.3.2 from the ppa, I see this ... somewhat: When I create a new table and directly go immediately to the table->delete menu it is still disabled, but not when doing it slower or when rolling to another menu, so this is likely just a latency issue: the menu just isnt updated quick enough.
same behavior on 1:4.0.2-0ubuntu1 as released with Ubuntu Raring, so not a regression with the vendor fixes for 4.0.3.
I also tried with Raring and there it works with some latency, as you said. But in Precise they don't get enabled, even after switching to another menu first or waiting a bit. This problem is more general. I think all menu entries that are disabled at startup don't work. E.g. Save, Undo, Copy, Paste etc. don't work either.
Not a LibreOffice bug then, but something in the Unity-stack: indicator-appmenu, glib or unity. Thus resolving as NOTOURBUG here. If this is properly triaged in the above mentioned stack, it might be fixed/backported there. From the LibreOffice side, there is nothing that can be done to fix this (as the same version running on 13.04 shows).