Bad allocation ; etc.

[williaba]

Good Day,
I started a spreadsheet, and tried to '=' a value into a cell from another sheet.
The program went into a 'hold' state with a message - 'not responding'.

When the action is completed I saved and exited.

When I restart the spreadsheet it needs to be recovered, and my earlier entries are lost.
If I repeat the entries I get "Bad Allocation" and "Vector<T> Too long"

Now, every spreadsheet I try to open needs to be recovered. Followed by the same problems.

I also see there is no LCK file created in the relevant directory.

I am using OpenOffice 4.1.0 on Windows 8 without any problem for the past few months.

Can anyone please advise?
Regards, Brian.

[thomasjk]

Try resetting the user profile viewtopic.php?f=74&t=12426.

[williaba]

Thank you Thomas. Unfortunately, it didn't work.

[williaba]

I also get a
Fatal Error ; vector<T> too long

[acknak]

I believe these errors indicate a programming error of some kind--something that should be fixed, IF the problem exists generally.

Can you reproduce the problem in a new spreadsheet? What steps are you following that lead to the errors?

If the problem is associated with a particular document, what document format are you using? .ods? .xls? Something else?

Can you attach the document here so we can try it out?

[ptoye]

You too, Brian.
I got it a few days ago, just after upgrading to 4.1. Didn't have time to investigate. It happened again today when closing a document. Restarting OO it recovered both the open documents (thank heavens). I haven't been able to reproduce it, but haven't tried very hard. Unfortunately the documents contain confidential information so I'd be extremely reluctant to post them here.

[acknak]

You can "anonymize" a document, see: [Forum] How to attach a document here

But if the document doesn't consistently trigger the problem for you, it's not so important to post it.

[ptoye]

If I can reproduce the problem consistently I'll try to anonymise it and post it here but it's got 9 sheets and a lot of cross-links between them. So please don't hold your breath.

[williaba]

Good Day, Thanks for the responses.

The sequence is very much as in my initial posting.

I have re-installed OO Version 4.1 -to no avail.

I am considering reverting to OO Version 4.0.1.

But this is all 'Suck & See" troubleshooting.

I have copied a backup of the .ods file from my memory stick - to no avail.

Does the vector error I get refer to some kind of memory overflow?

The spreadsheets I use are multi-sheeted with references between sheets. And I have been using them for at least 10 years going back to the earliest versions of Open Office, and forward through all of the updates till now.
Regards, Brian.

[RusselB]

Fortunately I haven't come across this problem for quite some time, but the last time I did encounter it, presuming I remember correctly, it was due to a bad disk causing the Bad Allocation error.
I can't state for sure that it's the same problem as the specific error message that you report doesn't match what I recall. The message I got included the word Disk in the error message, which is how I knew that was the culprit.

As to the Vector error, that's a new one on me.

[williaba]

Thanks Russell. No, there is no reference to a disc problem.

In the meantime I have reverted to OO version 4.0.1.

My spreadsheets now open and I have none of the problems as defined initially.

I have performed several transactions without fault.

I have to assume that my spreadsheets were not, and still are not, corrupted.

My feelings are that there is an incompatibility between OO version 4.1.0 and Windows 8, which accumulates over a period of time until the allocation error kicks in, or something like that.

In the meantime I'll stick with OO version 4.0.1 and hope for the best.
Regards, Brian.

[ptoye]

Not just Windows 8 if we have the same problem. I've had both your error messages with Windows 7. But I can't replicate them (not that I'm trying that hard).

[ptoye]

This is getting interesting. I was updating a multi-sheet spreadsheet, and typed "=" into a cell, then clicked on another sheet's tab (to complete the reference) when I got "Error: vector <T> too long". It recovered the spreadsheet OK, so I copied it to another file for further investigation. Opened that file and tried again. Same error. Opened it again, and this time it worked! Went back to the original file, and tried again. This time it crashed with "Bad allocation".

Very much sounds like a program bug, but infrequent enough to make it hard to find. I really can't send you the file - it's got my tax details on it.

When it recovers the recovery window says that the Error Report Tool will start - but it doesn't. Any way I can get it to start up - but I still don't want the contents of the spreadsheet sent to Apache (or anyone except the taxman)?

[Villeroy]

Edit>Find&Replace...
[More Options]
[X] Regular expressions
Search in: Values (not formulas!)

Search: [:alpha:]
Replace: X
[Replace All]

Now you have all alphabitical characters replaced with X leaving some abstract and meaningless figures and formulas.

[ptoye]

Good idea. But - the offending spreadsheet has a link to another file. When I remove the link the problem seems to go away. So now you need two anonymised files. It's easier to go back to 4.0.1 to preserve my sanity. Or try LibreOffice.

[ptoye]

Well, I've managed to completely anonymise it by removing all of the data! And the bug persists.

So here's what to do: open Bug4 (attached) in Calc 4.1.0. Make sure that the "bug sheet" is selected on opening. In any cell type "=" and then click on the "main sheet" tab. At this point I get one of the error message "Vector <T> too long" or "bad allocation".

I found that if "Main sheet" is selected when the file's opened the bug doesn't appear. It also doesn't appear immediately after a recovery or if the file's been saved. Looks to me very like something isn't initialised correctly first time round, but gets initialised later on.

I'm using OO4.1.0 - must update my sig after posting.

[Villeroy]

I can not reproduce the problem with AOO 4.1 on Windows and Linux.

[ptoye]

I'm not surprised. Bugs like this tend to be configuration-dependent. Which Windows?

Brian - are you following this and can you reproduce this?

[williaba]

Good Day, Yes, but not so often now.

It was happening every time to any spreadsheet I chose to work with.

I have now reverted to 4.0.1 where everything works properly.

I have given all the information I can in my original posting, but I would have thought that instead of worrying about 'reproducing the problem', the experts would be evaluating the actual error messages I have clearly indicated :

"Bad Allocation"
"Vector<T> Too long"

?? What are they; if they are generated by Open Office, then they must appear somewhere in the source code, allowing further analysis.

I can't sign off as "Resolved" because it isn't, especially as others are experiencing the same problem, yourself too, 'ptoye'.

Regards, Brian.

[RoryOF]

The error messages can arise from any one of a considerable number of causes. Bad allocation' can arise from any use of memory in the program, which uses memory all the time, so it is telling us what is wrong, but with no clue to where. Ditto the Vector message. Such messages may not appear within OpenOffice itself - more likely from the memory management of the code compiler used.

If there is a method of consistently causing the problem, then a developer can get a clue to what may be causing the error message(s) and know where to look to see exactly what is happening and hopefully to implement a possible solution.

If you start Windows in Safe Mode (Press F8 while "starting Windows" message on older Windows versions - I'm not sure about later versions), does the problem occur when running OpenOffice on Windows in Safe Mode? If not, it is almost certainly an indication of interference from some oter program or driver that runs in Windows full mode.

[ptoye]

Rory,

Have you tried my bug4.ods (see post of 21 June 9:07 above) - Villeroy couldn't get it to fail.

[RoryOF]

Have just tried it - I couldn't get it to fail using OO 4.1 and Xubuntu 14.04.

[ptoye]

Thanks. I'm on Windows 7, which might make a difference. Villeroy didn't say which flavour of Windows he used. I don't have another machine I can try it on, though, except resurrecting an old XP box. I think I'll have to try re-installing OO4.1 or going back to 4.0.

If no-one else can reproduce it there's not much point in submitting a bug report.

I see that "bad allocation" hit a few recent bug reports (to do with charts), but "Vector <T> too long" doesn't. So presumably this is a new problem or specific to my configuration.

[RoryOF]

Try the Safe Mode trick. This gives helpful information.

[ptoye]

Thanks. I did. Interesting - I booted into safe mode, opened the spreadsheet. The window was a bit small and the selected cell wasn't visible, but I typed "=" and clicked on the "Main sheet" tab. No problem!

Then I booted into normal mode. The selected cell still wasn't visible (OO had kept its setting from the safe mode boot) so I did the same. And this time no problem either! A few more experiments and it seems that the cell that I'm typing "=" into has to be visible for the error to occur.

Back into safe mode, and I can't get the error to happen whatever I try. So there's no helpful information to report.

So your idea about a rogue driver is certainly a possibility. But I can't see how that would make an error so hard - if the driver's splatting all over memory I'd expect random errors, not a hard one. And errors in other programs as well.

I'll try the user profile trick next. [LATER] That didn't work either

[jrkrideau]

So your idea about a rogue driver is certainly a possibility. But I can't see how that would make an error so hard - if the driver's splatting all over memory I'd expect random errors, not a hard one. And errors in other programs as well.

I'd agree but years ago I had a similar problem in a Lotus123 spreadsheet. I could not change and save a value in one cell. I tried copying the file and using it. I tried deleting it and restoring the file (after merrily writing all sorts of stuff to disk and so on. Every time I changed the value in the cell the new calculations worked fine. Save and reload; the cell had reverted to its old value.

I still don't know what the problem was.

Remember computers are vindictive.

[ptoye]

Remember computers are vindictive.

True, but not much help...

[RoryOF]

You need to look at what services/programs are running in Windows full mode compared with windows safe mode; disabling each one in turn may help identify the problem. It's slow, but this is how fault=finding is done!

[ptoye]

I don't have the time at the moment. I need to have a fully working version of Calc without constant crashes, and while I'd like to help the dev team debug it, I'm a user, not a developer.

One further point: I mentioned above that following a recovery it says that it will load the error reporting tool, but this doesn't seem to happen. Does anyone here know why not or how to get it to work? There isn't a forum for general OO issues, or I'd ask there.

[no2ms2007]

I also was getting Fatal Error, Vector <T> too long.
This also happened every time on entering '=' and then switching to another sheet (in the same workbook) to select my cell. The failure happened at this point. The sheet I tried to switch to also had links from yet another sheet in the same workbook. I read this post and followed the advice to reset my user profile. I also changed the sheet names as they previously had spaces, and replaced the spaces with underscores. The problem has now gone away. I can't advise which of the two steps (or maybe both) resolved it for me.

Windows 7 Professional
Office 4.1.0