Any hope LO will actually run on High Sierra?

[IZ1IVA]

Hi,

I’m trying to run LO on macOS High Sierra and I’m liking it, save for the constant freezing - beachball spinning - force-quit cycle that gets in the way of doing things.

Browsing through past topics, I see many users had similar issues since 2016 at least and I’m wondering whether they simply gave up on using LO on High Sierra. Neooffice works perfectly, but it’s now ancient…

I’m very grateful to the developers, but I’d like to know whether High Sierra is actually supported or not.

Cheers,
Andrea

[Wanderer]

There is always hope, they say. But theese people seem also recommend praying, wich didn’t make much impression on my computers…

The current LibreOffice is compiled to run on

macOS 10.12 or newer

Givven the clarity of your description I don’t think any developer would start a thorough research for possible solutions on an OS wich Apple will not support.
.
I know some people using LibreOffice on their macs, not having more trouble there than any other program (like InDesign). But your computer may be different.
.
When you come to sites like this, all people seem to have trouble. But this tells not much on actual percentage.

@IZ1IVA

I’d like to know whether High Sierra is actually supported or not.

If you ask, if there is a Task-Force to set out on HighSierra-Problems? I guess not.
.
One can give bug-reports to bugzilla, but this requires some more details, because developers need a point to start. So usually the first is to analyze, if there is something in your file. Then the question is your installation (reset profile, use safe mode, setup-options). Only after this is done “we” start to consider the program is not running on this OS, and why.
.
Bottom line,
It depends on you, if you have hope.

[mikekaganski]

https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation/System_Requirements

@IZ1IVA

whether High Sierra is actually supported or not

No idea what “actually” could mean specifically in your phrase; but LibreOffice on macOS 10.13 is supported (in the sense, that it is expected that LibreOffice should run there normally; and that not doing that is likely a bug).
Also note that macOS 10.13 will not be supported after LibreOffice 7.4. So when the last release of 7.4 comes out, no other fixes related to macOS 10.13 will appear.

[IZ1IVA]

@Wanderer

Givven the clarity of your description I don’t think any developer would start a thorough research for possible solutions on an OS wich Apple will not support.

I’m willing to be much clearer than that, but if the general consesus is not to bother with unsupportes OS, then perhaps I’m not going to bother either.
It’s my work computer, still working perfectly, maxed out and refusing to became e-waste, but life goes on.

@Wanderer

When you come to sites like this, all people seem to have trouble. But this tells not much on actual percentage.

True.

@Wanderer

One can give bug-reports to bugzilla, but this requires some more details, because developers need a point to start. So usually the first is to analyze, if there is something in your file.

I’d be happy to help and provide more details, however I’ve read several posts which discussed this issue but no conclusion was ever drawn and I’m not sure developers engaged on that.

@Wanderer

Then the question is your installation (reset profile, use safe mode, setup-options).

Yes, I did all that, but unfortunately nothing solved the issue.

Cheers,
Andrea

[IZ1IVA]

@mikekaganski

No idea what “actually” could mean specifically in your phrase; but LibreOffice on macOS 10.13 is supported (in the sense, that it is expected that LibreOffice should run there normally; and that not doing that is likely a bug).

By “actually” I mean that one or more bugs prevent some installations on High Sierra to work properly, i.e. without freezing to death.

@mikekaganski

Also note that macOS 10.13 will not be supported after LibreOffice 7.4. So when the last release of 7.4 comes out, no other fixes related to macOS 10.13 will appear.

Sad news but I accept the inevitable. However, I’d be happy to have few more years on 7.4 if at all possibile.

Cheers,
Andrea

[mikekaganski]

@IZ1IVA

By “actually” I mean that one or more bugs prevent some installations on High Sierra to work properly, i.e. without freezing to death.

FYI: there are thousands of still unresolved bugs reported on our bug tracker; there are lots of them that may freeze LibreOffice “to death” on any platform. Your idea of “support” should mean that LibreOffice is not supported on any platform. Well, that’s how it is.

[mikekaganski]

@IZ1IVA

if the general consesus is not to bother with unsupportes OS, then perhaps I’m not going to bother either.

@IZ1IVA

I’ve read several posts which discussed this issue but no conclusion was ever drawn and I’m not sure developers engaged on that

Note that you likely have wrong expectations.
You are on user-to-user site. Nothing that you read on this Ask site should be taken as “official” point of view (if that is even possible on volunteer-driven projects); and it must be taken as something that another fellow user said. Sometimes developers say something here - but that is also nothing of “official”; I may often consider something as “not a bug”, and then @erAck comes and fixes that. (And I don’t know if any of our macOS experts ever visit this site at all - I personally doubt that.)

The only proper place to discuss if something would be fixed or not is on the bug tracker.

[IZ1IVA]

@mikekaganski

Your idea of “support” should mean that LibreOffice is not supported on any platform.

Ahahahah no, not really, I’m pretty tolerant towards FOSS, but I see you point!

@mikekaganski

Note that you likely have wrong expectations.

You’re probably right.

@mikekaganski

The only proper place to discuss if something would be fixed or not is on the bug tracker.

I’ll try that, cheers

[MikeNovember]

Hi,

This page https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation/System_Requirements/fr shows that High Sierra (10.13) is supported up to 7.4.x.x versions (it will no longer be supported with LO 7.5.x.x).

There are several versions of LO:

• 7.4.1 is a “fresh” version, unstable, not enough tested and might contain lots of bugs.
• 7.3.6 is a “still” version, more stable, well tested, with much less bugs.
• 7.2.7 is the final version, stable, of 7.2 branch.

So, if you want to test new functions, and are ready to endure bugs, use 7.4.1.
If you just want to use LO, and if new functions are not important for you, use 7.3.6 or 7.2.7.

Regards,

MN

[IZ1IVA]

Thanks @MikeNovember , unfortunately all versions exhibit the same behaviour.

[MikeNovember]

OK,
I suppose you have tested the usual tricks:

• disable hardware acceleration,
• disable Skia display (for most recent versions).

If so, and if it always freezes, you are let with NeoOffice (version 2017.33) or with Apache OpenOffice (version 4.1.1.3, released on 22 July 2022).

Regards,

MN

PS: and, since High Sierra is no longer supported by Apple, you could also install a Linux distro and use its version of LO (I use LO 7.3.6 on Linux Mint 20.3, and LO 7.3.6 on MacOS BigSur without any freeze).

[IZ1IVA]

@MikeNovember

I suppose you have tested the usual tricks:

Yed I did.

@MikeNovember

If so, and if it always freezes, you are let with NeoOffice (version 2017.33) or with Apache OpenOffice (version 4.1.1.3, released on 22 July 2022).

I’ve been using NeoOffice since forever and still works.

@MikeNovember

PS: and, since High Sierra is no longer supported by Apple, you could also install a Linux distro and use its version of LO (I use LO 7.3.6 on Linux Mint 20.3, and LO 7.3.6 on MacOS BigSur without any freeze).

Yeah, that’s the plan, albeit not today and not on this hardware. Will see!

Cheers,
Andrea

[wsanders1]

Bump old but frequently cited topic:

• 7.5.5 will refuse to run on HighSierra
• 7.4.7.2 seems to be fine. I have the following setup:

Version: 7.4.7.2 / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 723314e595e8007d3cf785c16538505a1c878ca5
CPU threads: 4; OS: Mac OS X 10.13.6; UI render: default; VCL: osx
Locale: en-US (en_US.UTF-8); UI: en-US
Calc: threaded

[mikekaganski]

It was already mentioned here: Any hope LO will actually run on High Sierra? - #3 by mikekaganski

And on the Release Notes pages: the end-of-support schedule for 7.4; the end-of-support notice for 7.5.

There’s also System Requirements page linked from our download page - and it mentions that macOS 10.14 or newer is required; and from it, there’s also a link to the detailed wiki with older versions for older OSes.