Crash, Crash, Crash

Discuss the word processor
Post Reply
bebofpenge
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu May 28, 2009 1:59 am

Crash, Crash, Crash

Post by bebofpenge »

Writer keeps crashing on me. Try to print a document - Crash. Try to open another document - Crash. Send an error report - Crash.

I have even uninstalled OpenOffice and downloaded and installed the latest version, but it still crashes all the time. I have scanned the OpenOffice folder with Avast antivirus and Malwarebytes anti malware program but can find nothing wrong there. Any suggestions?
OOo 3.1.X on Ms Windows XP
User avatar
Hagar Delest
Moderator
Posts: 32627
Joined: Sun Oct 07, 2007 9:07 pm
Location: France

Re: Crash, Crash, Crash

Post by Hagar Delest »

Try to reset your OOo user profile. But during the welcome process, don't transfer your personal data (if you had 2.x before), 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.
LibreOffice 7.6.2.1 on Xubuntu 23.10 and 7.6.4.1 portable on Windows 10
mjschmelzer
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu May 28, 2009 2:28 pm

Re: Crash, Crash, Crash

Post by mjschmelzer »

Me too. I am using OS X 10.4.11 and OS 10.5.6. I have reinstalled Open Office aqua several times. It crashes every time I try to open a file. It has become completely unusable, though last week it worked fine. Any clue what is going on?

MJ
OOo 3.1.X on Mac OSx Leopard + OS X 10.4.11
JesseDaniel
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Aug 25, 2009 7:10 pm

Re: Crash, Crash, Crash

Post by JesseDaniel »

I also experience constant and persistent crashing of openoffice writer.

My ability to identify what might be the cause of these crashes diminishes each time that writer crashes due to a more and more insignificant action taken by me the user. The problem originally began when -- having opened a .doc file originally created in microsoft word with openoffice writer -- I attempted to export the document as a pdf. Writer crashed. Upon reopening the file -- now having saved the file as .odt before exporting to pdf -- all endnote numerals throughout the entire document were changed to times new roman font at a font size matching the document font size, with no ability to change their attributes.

By now though, any action taken (sending the file by email, converting the file from .odt to .rtf, converting the file to pdf, whether the mouse was moved to the wrong corner of the screen), crashes openoffice writer. Deleting/resetting user profile does not solve this problem. I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling openoffice suite: this does not solve the issue.
Please advise.

Many thanks.
OpenOffice 3.1 on Windows Vista
User avatar
RoryOF
Moderator
Posts: 34586
Joined: Sat Jan 31, 2009 9:30 pm
Location: Ireland

Re: Crash, Crash, Crash

Post by RoryOF »

Disconnect from the Internet (for safety) and disable your Antivirus. Does stability return? If so, time to consider another antivirus. I use (with no crashes) AVGfree.
Apache OpenOffice 4.1.15 on Xubuntu 22.04.4 LTS
xeno735
Posts: 6
Joined: Thu Nov 27, 2014 2:58 am

Re: Crash, Crash, Crash

Post by xeno735 »

This blasted program is driving me nuts with crashes. :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: This is 9/11/2015 and I'm just about to jump ship on OO 4.1.1 Writer after using it for about 8 months. AOO411m6(Build:9775) - Rev. 1617669 2014-08-13 09:06:54 (Mi, 13 Aug 2014) "OpenOffice 4.1.1 is up to date."

Crashes constantly (Not Responding) on Win 7 Pro SP1.

The automated page count at the bottom get stuck at 1/8, although my document is much longer. I've been using a lot of end notes, but I'd expect it to keep working even if I have thousands of end notes and pages. Perhaps Libre will crash less.
OpenOffice 4.1.1 on Windows 7 Professional
xeno735
Posts: 6
Joined: Thu Nov 27, 2014 2:58 am

Re: Crash, Crash, Crash

Post by xeno735 »

Fixed for now. I forced quitted the not responding OO Writer, then renamed my profile (C:\Users\{username}\AppData\Roaming\OpenOffice\4) from "user" to "user.old" then started OO and went through all settings before opening Writer and turned off anything that might have to do any work in the background or contact anything via the Internet. Then loaded my doc and it has been working fine.
OpenOffice 4.1.1 on Windows 7 Professional
John_Ha
Volunteer
Posts: 9583
Joined: Fri Sep 18, 2009 5:51 pm
Location: UK

Re: Crash, Crash, Crash

Post by John_Ha »

When you save a document, the file registrymodifications.xcu in the User Profile is only written after the file has been completely saved. When you reset the profile, you replace registrymodifications.xcu with a new version. So ...

If you have a large document which takes many seconds to save, be sure to allow Writer plenty of time to save it, so that you can be absolutely certain that the registrymodifications.xcu file in the User Profile is also saved properly.

Don't slam the laptop lid shut too quickly!
LO 6.4.4.2, Windows 10 Home 64 bit

See the Writer Guide, the Writer FAQ, the Writer Tutorials and Writer for students.

Remember: Always save your Writer files as .odt files. - see here for the many reasons why.
xeno735
Posts: 6
Joined: Thu Nov 27, 2014 2:58 am

Re: Crash, Crash, Crash

Post by xeno735 »

Another hint: OO Writer's crashes seem to happen more frequently when I switch to another program while it is busy taking a long time to save.
OpenOffice 4.1.1 on Windows 7 Professional
John_Ha
Volunteer
Posts: 9583
Joined: Fri Sep 18, 2009 5:51 pm
Location: UK

Re: Crash, Crash, Crash

Post by John_Ha »

xeno735 wrote:Another hint: OO Writer's crashes seem to happen more frequently when I switch to another program while it is busy taking a long time to save.
That suggests a problem in the Operating System, as it should be able to handle switching to another application without disrupting Writer.

Similarly, the OS should be able to handle shutting down or hibernating the PC, or putting it to sleep, by handling all running applications properly, so it could be an OS problem causing loss of data.

Whatever is causing the problem, it is strongly recommended waiting until a large document has properly closed.

NB - have you thought about using a master document, which is a small document which calls separate sub-documents, where each sub-document is, say, a chapter? Admittedly, you can only only edit the sub-documents by opening one (or more) of them, but those chapters not being edited do not need to be loaded. See Ch13 - Working with Master Documents
LO 6.4.4.2, Windows 10 Home 64 bit

See the Writer Guide, the Writer FAQ, the Writer Tutorials and Writer for students.

Remember: Always save your Writer files as .odt files. - see here for the many reasons why.
John_Ha
Volunteer
Posts: 9583
Joined: Fri Sep 18, 2009 5:51 pm
Location: UK

Re: Crash, Crash, Crash

Post by John_Ha »

JesseDaniel wrote:The problem originally began when -- having opened a .doc file originally created in microsoft word ...
It could be a problem in the .doc file, or Writer's handling of something in the .doc file it does not understand. Writer's .doc interface had to be reverse engineered as I believe that Microsoft provided no, little, or incomplete information about the .doc format. After all, I doubt they wanted anyone to be able to read it - I am sure they far preferred everyone to buy a copy of MS Word.

Save any .doc file as a .odt file, delete the .doc file, and work only with the .odt file.
 Edit: Following Rory's suggestion below, it is better to copy the contents of the .doc (or .docx) file, and paste them into a new, empty .odt file, and continue using the .odt file. 
Last edited by John_Ha on Tue Oct 13, 2015 5:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
LO 6.4.4.2, Windows 10 Home 64 bit

See the Writer Guide, the Writer FAQ, the Writer Tutorials and Writer for students.

Remember: Always save your Writer files as .odt files. - see here for the many reasons why.
User avatar
RoryOF
Moderator
Posts: 34586
Joined: Sat Jan 31, 2009 9:30 pm
Location: Ireland

Re: Crash, Crash, Crash

Post by RoryOF »

In addiition to John_Ha's advice, when dealing with a troublesome MS Word document, it is sometimes better to open a blank .odt document, switch to the .doc, Ctrl A to select all, Ctrl C to copy all, switch back to the blank .odt and .Ctrl V to paste the copied data. Then Save the .odt document.

This more involved process has been reported to sort out glitches that simply Saving the .doc directly in the .odt format did not cure. But use whichever method gives the best results for you.
Apache OpenOffice 4.1.15 on Xubuntu 22.04.4 LTS
John_Ha
Volunteer
Posts: 9583
Joined: Fri Sep 18, 2009 5:51 pm
Location: UK

Re: Crash, Crash, Crash

Post by John_Ha »

RoryOF wrote:it is sometimes better to open a blank .odt document, switch to the .doc, Ctrl A to select all, Ctrl C to copy all, switch back to the blank .odt and .Ctrl V to paste the copied data. Then Save the .odt document.
This more involved process has been reported to sort out glitches that simply Saving the .doc directly in the .odt format did not cure.
I agree - that is much better.

Another good idea is to use the MS Word Viewer to open the .doc file, and copy the contents. Word Viewer works with .docx files too. See How to obtain the latest Microsoft Word Viewer
LO 6.4.4.2, Windows 10 Home 64 bit

See the Writer Guide, the Writer FAQ, the Writer Tutorials and Writer for students.

Remember: Always save your Writer files as .odt files. - see here for the many reasons why.
peterpr
Posts: 5
Joined: Mon Oct 26, 2015 3:54 pm

Re: Crash, Crash, Crash

Post by peterpr »

John_Ha wrote:

Another good idea is to use the MS Word Viewer to open the .doc file, and copy the contents. Word Viewer works with .docx files too. See How to obtain the latest Microsoft Word Viewer
I thought "what a good idea" but when I tried to do this, after pressing the Download button I was not asked where to put the downloaded file but was thanked for downloading (no time delay while a download could have taken place). I could find no trace of the wdviewer.exe file. Very disappointed. :( Where did it go?
OpenOffice 4.1.1
Windows Vista Home Premium
John_Ha
Volunteer
Posts: 9583
Joined: Fri Sep 18, 2009 5:51 pm
Location: UK

Re: Crash, Crash, Crash

Post by John_Ha »

After following the link to the download page and deselecting msn.com as home page etc, and pressing No thanks and continue, I get the Thank you for downloading web page and a small pop-up window saying "You have chosen to open: wordview_en_us.exe. Where would you like to save this file?" When I click Save it saves it to my Downloads folder, or, in your case, to the place you have told your browser to save downloaded files. Check your browser options to see where that is, or use Start > type wordview in the search box, and locate it.
LO 6.4.4.2, Windows 10 Home 64 bit

See the Writer Guide, the Writer FAQ, the Writer Tutorials and Writer for students.

Remember: Always save your Writer files as .odt files. - see here for the many reasons why.
Bill
Volunteer
Posts: 8932
Joined: Sat Nov 24, 2007 6:48 am

Re: Crash, Crash, Crash

Post by Bill »

Press CTRL+J to open the downloads window of the Web browser. If the file was downloaded, you can find its location on downloads window.
AOO 4.1.14 on Ubuntu MATE 22.04
peterpr
Posts: 5
Joined: Mon Oct 26, 2015 3:54 pm

Re: Crash, Crash, Crash

Post by peterpr »

John_Ha wrote:After following the link to the download page and deselecting msn.com as home page etc, and pressing No thanks and continue, I get the Thank you for downloading web page and a small pop-up window saying "You have chosen to open: wordview_en_us.exe. Where would you like to save this file?" When I click Save it saves it to my Downloads folder, or, in your case, to the place you have told your browser to save downloaded files. Check your browser options to see where that is, or use Start > type wordview in the search box, and locate it.
and
Bill wrote:Press CTRL+J to open the downloads window of the Web browser. If the file was downloaded, you can find its location on downloads window.
The original link in this thread went to How to obtain the latest Word Viewer, this page said I would also need the Compatibility Pack. I clicked the link for the first which was rerouted to http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download ... .aspx?id=4 where there was a Download button which should download wdviewer.exe but I got the same result when I tried the second which should download wordview_en_us.exe. I don't know what you mean about deselecting msm.com. Nothing following this comment bears any relationship to my experience. I would have expected to get the dialogue you mentioned. I have tried both your and Bill's suggestion to find the download but there is no sign of it. I've even done a search of the of my user tree. I normally specify the download location at the time - usually a sub-folder of Downloads.

It occured to me that since I am on Vista I am unable to use the latest IE browser so I tried Google. This got further and it looked as if it was going to work, even downloading both files, but instead of getting wdviewer.exe I got FileFormatConverters.exe downloded instead :!: although the web page said I had Word Viewer. So I'm not sure whether to proceed.
OpenOffice 4.1.1
Windows Vista Home Premium
Bill
Volunteer
Posts: 8932
Joined: Sat Nov 24, 2007 6:48 am

Re: Crash, Crash, Crash

Post by Bill »

The original link opens a page with two links. One is for the Word Viewer. The other is for the Compatibility Pack. You may have clicked the Compatibility Pack link which does download the FileFormatConverters.exe.
AOO 4.1.14 on Ubuntu MATE 22.04
John_Ha
Volunteer
Posts: 9583
Joined: Fri Sep 18, 2009 5:51 pm
Location: UK

Re: Crash, Crash, Crash

Post by John_Ha »

Bill is correct. The page offers a Compatibility Pack for making older versions of MS Word capable of working with .odt files, as well as the Viewer.

You want the completely separate Word Viewer - it is the file called wordview_en_us.exe. Download it and run it to install it. See image for file downloaded in Firefox.
Attachments
Clipboard02.png
Clipboard02.png (9.93 KiB) Viewed 4348 times
LO 6.4.4.2, Windows 10 Home 64 bit

See the Writer Guide, the Writer FAQ, the Writer Tutorials and Writer for students.

Remember: Always save your Writer files as .odt files. - see here for the many reasons why.
peterpr
Posts: 5
Joined: Mon Oct 26, 2015 3:54 pm

Re: Crash, Crash, Crash

Post by peterpr »

The first link goes to the Word Viewer page, yes. In Google Chrome Browser the download button opened a list with the Word Viewer at at the top and the msm one that John_Ha referred to so I deleted it as he said and selected the Compatability one and ran the two. I received in order FileFormatConverters.exe and wordview_en-us.exe. I have just tried again to get the Word Viewer one but got the wordview_en-us.exe again. Could it be a documentation error? The Word Viewer page's Installation Instructions say it should be wdviewer.exe. The compatibility page gives FileFormatConverters.exe, so where does wordview_en-us.exe come from?

Assuming it's a documentation error and that the files downloaded are correct I started by installing wordview_en-us.exe but it claimed to be Microsoft Office Word Viewer 2003 however the documentation (How to obtain the latest Word Viewer) said that Microsoft Word Viewer replaced Microsoft Word Viewer 2003. Verification of the installation of the Compatibilty Pack failed.

The above was drafted before John_Ha's latest post.
OpenOffice 4.1.1
Windows Vista Home Premium
Bill
Volunteer
Posts: 8932
Joined: Sat Nov 24, 2007 6:48 am

Re: Crash, Crash, Crash

Post by Bill »

I think it's just a documentation error. While it shows up on the Start Menu as Microsoft Office Word Viewer 2003, when I select Help > About Microsoft Office Word Viewer, it's shown as "Microsoft Office Word Viewer (11.8.19.8172) SP3", not "Microsoft Office Word Viewer 2003".
AOO 4.1.14 on Ubuntu MATE 22.04
Post Reply