[Solved (sort of)] Crashes OpenOffice

[fiveradicaltwo]

OK, I'm running OpenOffice 2.4 under Ubuntu. It was working fine except if I looked at the formula formatting preferences page, and happened to click on the Macros tab, I'd have to click confirm to a bunch of boxes that popped up asking me to install JDK.
So I decided to do that.
I discovered that after that when I tried to insert formulas, they would not be inline with the text. I looked all over to change the default settings but decided for the time being to just copy and paste earlier formulas (which were formatted as inline with the text).
Well, I opened my document today and see that every bleeding formula from the entire document is piled at the beginning, and there are gaps where the formulas otherwise would have been.
I decided that I must have really screwed something up, and since I can't seem to fix it I'll reinstall the Word Processor and Formula components of OpenOffice.
So I go to my Applications menu and choose Add/Remove and click the boxes to remove these two items (and they are removed) and then I add them back in.
Well I opened my document again and all of my formulas are still piled at the beginning, but as a test I drop my cursor somewhere randomly inline with the text and go to add a formula (just to see if it puts it there and not at the beginning of the document). well NOW adding a formula crashes openoffice.
What in the world is going on here?

[Hagar Delest]

What was the anchoring of the formulas? The best one is As Character (and not To Character).

For the crashes, try to rename your OOo user profile (~/.openoffice.org2), a new one will be created at next startup. If it doesn't fix the issue, try the official (Sun's) version: install the official version of OOo : [Ubuntu] Installing OOo on Debian and Co.

Thanks to add '[Solved]' at beginning of your first post title (edit button) if your issue has been fixed.

[fiveradicaltwo]

I actually had them as 'as character'. I couldn't get the new formulas to default to that for some reason. That's why I copied and pasted other 'as character' formulae so I wouldn't have to scroll to the top of the page and grab every formula and reposition it.
Since posting I actually did do a sudo apt-get remove on all of the openoffice components and I am downloading the debs for the sun version as we speak.

[fiveradicaltwo]

OK, now it doesn't like that I downloaded the i386 version and I have AMD64. I can only find one version available for download.

[Hagar Delest]

I couldn't get the new formulas to default to that for some reason.

In the Stylist (F11), display the Frame styles, click on a formula, make sure the anchoring is set to As Character and in the Stylist, click the far right icon and select Update style. Then, new formulas should be fine.

For the download, what's the problem, any error message?

[fiveradicaltwo]

I couldn't get the new formulas to default to that for some reason.

In the Stylist (F11), display the Frame styles, click on a formula, make sure the anchoring is set to As Character and in the Stylist, click the far right icon and select Update style. Then, new formulas should be fine.

For the download, what's the problem, any error message?

It downloaded but all the debs were for i386. I have amd64. When I tried to do sudo dpkg -i *.deb I got:

thom@Archimedes:~/Desktop/OOH680_m12_native_packed-1_en-US.9286/DEBS$ sudo dpkg -i *.deb
dpkg: error processing openoffice.org-base_2.4.0-12_i386.deb (--install):
package architecture (i386) does not match system (amd64)
dpkg: error processing openoffice.org-calc_2.4.0-12_i386.deb (--install):
package architecture (i386) does not match system (amd64)
dpkg: error processing openoffice.org-core01_2.4.0-12_i386.deb (--install):
package architecture (i386) does not match system (amd64)
dpkg: error processing openoffice.org-core02_2.4.0-12_i386.deb (--install):
package architecture (i386) does not match system (amd64)
dpkg: error processing openoffice.org-core03_2.4.0-12_i386.deb (--install):
package architecture (i386) does not match system (amd64)
dpkg: error processing openoffice.org-core03u_2.4.0-12_i386.deb (--install):
package architecture (i386) does not match system (amd64)
dpkg: error processing openoffice.org-core04_2.4.0-12_i386.deb (--install):
package architecture (i386) does not match system (amd64)
dpkg: error processing openoffice.org-core04u_2.4.0-12_i386.deb (--install):
package architecture (i386) does not match system (amd64)
dpkg: error processing openoffice.org-core05_2.4.0-12_i386.deb (--install):
package architecture (i386) does not match system (amd64)
dpkg: error processing openoffice.org-core05u_2.4.0-12_i386.deb (--install):
package architecture (i386) does not match system (amd64)
dpkg: error processing openoffice.org-core06_2.4.0-12_i386.deb (--install):
package architecture (i386) does not match system (amd64)
dpkg: error processing openoffice.org-core07_2.4.0-12_i386.deb (--install):
package architecture (i386) does not match system (amd64)
dpkg: error processing openoffice.org-core08_2.4.0-12_i386.deb (--install):
package architecture (i386) does not match system (amd64)
dpkg: error processing openoffice.org-core09_2.4.0-12_i386.deb (--install):
package architecture (i386) does not match system (amd64)
dpkg: error processing openoffice.org-core10_2.4.0-12_i386.deb (--install):
package architecture (i386) does not match system (amd64)
dpkg: error processing openoffice.org-draw_2.4.0-12_i386.deb (--install):
package architecture (i386) does not match system (amd64)
dpkg: error processing openoffice.org-emailmerge_2.4.0-12_i386.deb (--install):
package architecture (i386) does not match system (amd64)
dpkg: error processing openoffice.org-gnome-integration_2.4.0-12_i386.deb (--install):
package architecture (i386) does not match system (amd64)
dpkg: error processing openoffice.org-graphicfilter_2.4.0-12_i386.deb (--install):
package architecture (i386) does not match system (amd64)
dpkg: error processing openoffice.org-headless_2.4.0-12_i386.deb (--install):
package architecture (i386) does not match system (amd64)
dpkg: error processing openoffice.org-impress_2.4.0-12_i386.deb (--install):
package architecture (i386) does not match system (amd64)
dpkg: error processing openoffice.org-javafilter_2.4.0-12_i386.deb (--install):
package architecture (i386) does not match system (amd64)
dpkg: error processing openoffice.org-kde-integration_2.4.0-12_i386.deb (--install):
package architecture (i386) does not match system (amd64)
dpkg: error processing openoffice.org-math_2.4.0-12_i386.deb (--install):
package architecture (i386) does not match system (amd64)
dpkg: error processing openoffice.org-onlineupdate_2.4.0-12_i386.deb (--install):
package architecture (i386) does not match system (amd64)
dpkg: error processing openoffice.org-pyuno_2.4.0-12_i386.deb (--install):
package architecture (i386) does not match system (amd64)
dpkg: error processing openoffice.org-testtool_2.4.0-12_i386.deb (--install):
package architecture (i386) does not match system (amd64)
dpkg: error processing openoffice.org-writer_2.4.0-12_i386.deb (--install):
package architecture (i386) does not match system (amd64)
dpkg: error processing openoffice.org-xsltfilter_2.4.0-12_i386.deb (--install):
package architecture (i386) does not match system (amd64)
Errors were encountered while processing:
openoffice.org-base_2.4.0-12_i386.deb
openoffice.org-calc_2.4.0-12_i386.deb
openoffice.org-core01_2.4.0-12_i386.deb
openoffice.org-core02_2.4.0-12_i386.deb
openoffice.org-core03_2.4.0-12_i386.deb
openoffice.org-core03u_2.4.0-12_i386.deb
openoffice.org-core04_2.4.0-12_i386.deb
openoffice.org-core04u_2.4.0-12_i386.deb
openoffice.org-core05_2.4.0-12_i386.deb
openoffice.org-core05u_2.4.0-12_i386.deb
openoffice.org-core06_2.4.0-12_i386.deb
openoffice.org-core07_2.4.0-12_i386.deb
openoffice.org-core08_2.4.0-12_i386.deb
openoffice.org-core09_2.4.0-12_i386.deb
openoffice.org-core10_2.4.0-12_i386.deb
openoffice.org-draw_2.4.0-12_i386.deb
openoffice.org-emailmerge_2.4.0-12_i386.deb
openoffice.org-gnome-integration_2.4.0-12_i386.deb
openoffice.org-graphicfilter_2.4.0-12_i386.deb
openoffice.org-headless_2.4.0-12_i386.deb
openoffice.org-impress_2.4.0-12_i386.deb
openoffice.org-javafilter_2.4.0-12_i386.deb
openoffice.org-kde-integration_2.4.0-12_i386.deb
openoffice.org-math_2.4.0-12_i386.deb
openoffice.org-onlineupdate_2.4.0-12_i386.deb
openoffice.org-pyuno_2.4.0-12_i386.deb
openoffice.org-testtool_2.4.0-12_i386.deb
openoffice.org-writer_2.4.0-12_i386.deb
openoffice.org-xsltfilter_2.4.0-12_i386.deb

So I'm trying to use ubuntu to install the version in their library again.

[fiveradicaltwo]

I reinstalled the whole lot from the ubuntu library and inserting a formula into the same original document crashes it. I started a new document and it's working fine. I can probably recover it mostly by copy and paste. So it's solved but not exactly a 'solution'. I'm attaching the document if anybody is interested in having a look, but for now I guess it's working.

[Hagar Delest]

For the architecture, isn't there a --force-architecture option for the dpkg command?

But I confirm that your document crashes also my 2.4 version when I try to insert a formula!

You can try to file a bug report and upload your document in the Issue tracker: [Tutorial] Reporting bugs.

[acknak]

Crashes for me too.

[fiveradicaltwo]

I think there may be. I'm a bit of a linux n00b. I have a reasonable about of experience with *nix in general but I'm not an expert on this implementation.

I saw that there was already an issue posted about inserting formulas crashing open office, so I attached my document to it and described it briefly.

[Hagar Delest]

Then, post the link to the bug here, so that interested users can vote for it.

[fiveradicaltwo]

OK. Here is the one that I added to.

http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=86930

[acknak]

Ok, your document has the same problem described in that issue: the "Formula" frame style has become set for anchor "to page", which apparently crashes Writer. Yuck.

You can fix it by
1) select one of the formulas in your document
2) open the Stylist (F11) > Frame styles (icon-buttons across the top left) > Formula (this should be automatic when you select a formula)
3) choose the "Update style" action (top right; drop-down menu). This copies the settings of the selected object over to the style that goes with the object: IOW it forces the style to match the object.

Note that something still isn't quite right; after the update style action, the Formula frame style says "to character", but it does actually anchor "as character." The main point is that it doesn't crash any more.