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[Solved] OpenOffice Unresponsive - Network Printer Issue

Posted: Thu Jun 08, 2023 2:47 pm
by Mr Freeze
Hi,

I've been having random issues with OpenOffice hanging, on two machines, with no hardware/software changes.

Since it's been very stable, I kinda thought there had to be a simple solution, and found it!

Basically I had printed a document using a Network Printer that wasn't my Default Printer.

Printer was off the next time I opened any OpenOffice App, and the response was the same - grey screen, hanging...

Since this was the only change made, I turned the printer on and tada! Apps work as normal.

TLDR - Windows 11 has a setting "Allow Windows to manager my default printer" - which basically changes the default to the last printer used. This is *bad* if that printer happens to be used infrequently. When first opened, Open Office seems to try to communicate with this offline printer, leading to the hang.

My solution - turn off that setting, and set a default printer to "Microsoft XPS Document Writer". which is always available (if the XPS feature is installed of course :D )

I nearly uninstalled due to this, but the fact it happened on a couple of machine at the same time, led to a possible simple solution!

Hope this helps

Mr Freeze

Re: [Solved] OpenOffice Unresponsive - Network Printer Issue

Posted: Thu Jun 08, 2023 11:21 pm
by Hagar Delest
Indeed, there are (old) bug reports open for that, see: [Solved] Stuck at opening.