[Solved] Error-new document: template xxx.stw does not exist

[rrobason]

Whenever I create a new document from a template in Writer, I get the following error message:

[OpenOffice 3.1] Error creating a new document: /home/rob/Templates/RobsWebsite.stw does not exist. [OK]

There was such a template in the past, but I renamed and moved it to a new templates folder. The path /home/rob/Templates is no longer even in my Templates path for OO.

I can't figure out a) why I'm getting this message, and b) how to get rid of it.

Can anyone shed light on this?

[Hagar Delest]

Hi and welcome to the forum!

Can you describe what you're doing exactly? What menus do you use to call that template?

Basically, you need to use the File>Templates>Organize dialog to manage your templates (import them for example). Never paste templates directly in the template folder with your file browser.

[rrobason]

Just to clarify: this error message occurs when I click File->New->Templates and Documents - and before the Templates and Documents selection dialog box appears.

[Hagar Delest]

Try to reset your OOo user profile. But during the welcome process (if you had 2.x before), don't transfer your personal data, former configuration files might corrupt the new profile.

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

[rrobason]

Try to reset your OOo user profile. But during the welcome process (if you had 2.x before), don't transfer your personal data, former configuration files might corrupt the new profile.

Hagar:
Resetting the user profile cleared the problem. I'd like to recover as much of my old profile as possible, though. Now that we know the problem lies there, do you have any suggestions as to where to look for the specific error?

[Villeroy]

I guess you declared that template as default template (the one that is used on File>New>Text). When you move a default template it is missing whenever you start a new document from no particular template.

[rrobason]

I did some digging and found the file that had the problem. I patched it by editing, but would have preferred that OO had permitted me to fix the problem though the UI.

The problem was in the file $HOME/.openoffice.org/3/user/registry/data/org/openoffice/ucb/Hierarchy.xcu. The removed template was there. Once I identified the culprit template, I was able to find it in the Template Organizer. I tried to remove it there, but only managed to crash OO. So I hacked the Hierarchy.xcu file and gave the missing template a pathname to an existent file. After restarting OO, I was able to use the Template Organizer to remove the unwanted template.

What struck me as buggy was that I could remove the template with the organizer only once the target file existed - and wasn't able to remove it otherwise.

Here's a sample of the the Hierarchy.xcu entry before my cleanup (not exactly the one I changed, but similar). I manually edited the "file:///" value to point to a file that existed:

Code: Select all

<node oor:name="Electronic%20letter%20template" oor:op="replace">
 <prop oor:name="TargetURL" oor:type="xs:string">
  <value>file:///home/shared/Templates/letterhead.ott</value>
 </prop>
 <prop oor:name="Title" oor:type="xs:string">
  <value>Electronic letter template</value>
 </prop>
 <prop oor:name="Type" oor:type="xs:int">
  <value>0</value>
 </prop>
</node>

After removing the hacked template using the Template Organizer, I was left with:

Code: Select all

<node oor:name="Rob%20Robason%20Home%20Page" oor:op="remove"/>

Anyway, my situation is back to normal. Thanks for the tip on the profile - it gave me a place to start looking, and now it's repaired so I haven't lost my customizations.

[RonMackintosh]

I am afraid that this solution does not help the rest of us with the same problem. I have an identical problem. I will start a new thread for this problem.
Looks like a bug in the program to me.