"Object not accessible"... except as superuser

[ricardisimo]

I'm trying to produce PDFs from a template that references a database in my home folder for names and mailing addresses. When I hit "Print..." it asks if I am trying to produce a form letter, which is kind of what I am trying to do, so I hit yes. I select the person's name in the database, and for Output I select "file", and "save as a single document". I give it a name and select PDF as the file type. At this point I get the response:

Code: Select all

Object not accessible.
The object cannot be accessed due to insufficient user rights.

... unless I have run OpenOffice as root from a terminal. But that's ridiculous. Why should have to run as root when everything already belongs to me? All of the files, the database, the path, everything is mine, so why the restriction?

I'm on Ubuntu Hardy (Ibex as of tomorrow, probably) and running OOo 3.0. Thanks for any help.

[ricardisimo]

Hmmm... this is odd. It works just fine if I select "Generate filename from database". Of course, then I have to waste time going back and changing the filename, but at least it does seem to work. Smells like a bug to me. Any ideas?

[acknak]

Hmm, I never knew you could even do that (merge to PDF output).

FWIW, I get the same error, but the same file works fine in OOo 2.4.1.

Ok, it looks like this is the same problem: Issue 94839: MailMerge WIzard crash by creating single PDF file

According to the comments there, it's caused by the PDF Import extension . Sure enough, if I remove that extension, the merge to PDF works fine.

[ricardisimo]

Hey! Thanks for the tip! I gave up at some point and re-installed 2.4 via the Ubuntu repositories, thinking that other dependencies in my system may have been the issue. I only just today thought to give this another try. I didn't even remove the PDF Import extension, just disabled it. Worked like a charm.

Now the question is this: what can I no longer do in OOo 3.01 now that this extension has been disabled? Furthermore, is there any way to find out if it's a problem on which someone is working? Thanks again.

[acknak]

The extension allows OOo to open PDF files as a drawing. It doesn't affect any normal operations.

You can follow the status of the problem by clicking the link to the issue page. The status is shown, along with a lot of other information. You can follow any details of the work on the problem through reading the comments at the bottom.

The most important status fields are:
Status: VERIFIED
Resolution: FIXED
Target milestone: OOo 3.1

Those show that the problem has been fixed, and the fix has been verified, and that it will appear in the next release of OOo (3.1).

The scheduled release date for OOo 3.1 is late March.