Calc hangs on opening ODS file - seems related to printer availability?

Info update: 2017 08 11. LibreOffice 5.4.0 for 64bit Windows 7 Pro. ODS file will not open because the network printer was offline. Wish that info was easier to get before I deleted user profile, updated to most recent version of LibreOffice and generally chased my tail.

Got it!

It was not the tea timer thing. The problem remained after uninstalling it. It seems to have something to do with printing. Calc seems to wait for something in the print spooler. If I stop the windows process splwow64.exe, calc resumes it’s normal work and everything is ok. Splwow64.exe is a print spooler service for 32 bit programs. After stopping it, windows starts it again immediately but calc works.

This would appear to be fdo#42673 as I indicated in my answer above.

That bug seems to be marked as resolved. Apparently it is not. I don’t have any disconnected printers. It is sometimes switched off but it doesn’t help to switch it on either. Someone in the LO should check it out. Freezing the software when a printing service doesn’t respond is not a proper way to handle things in my opinion. Most of the time most people don’t even use a printer these days.

Hmmm, on re-reading that bug, I agree. I am not certain whether the cause of the problem is something in Windows or something in LO and the resolution was dubious (IMO). Please report a bug as it may be a regression (or an improperly resolved original bug), and provide as much detail as possible. I would suggest linking to the indicated bug as it does appear to be related, even if not exactly the same.

Thanks, that one helped me a lot!

I have an ODS file which started to give me exactly the same problem, and in my case it appears to be related to a network printer that runs on a machine which I am not normally logged on to. After logging on through Windows Explorer, I was able to open the ODS file normally.

For what it’s worth, there is also a reference to the printer in the settings.xml file inside the document (in <config:config-item config:name=“PrinterName” config:type=“string”>).

Windows 8.1, Libre Office 4.2.5.2

This worked for me. I had to stop the spoolsv.exe process on a Windows 7 x64 system. This apparently happens when I’m using my laptop without being connected to our company network.

Still a problem in 2017. LibreOffice 5.4.0 for Windows 7.