I have been using LibreOffice for about two months. On more than one occasion when trying to open documents that I’ve created, I get a message that the document has been blocked by another user, and/or that I can only read it. I am the ONLY user of my computer and NO ONE else has access to it. Can anyone explain this…?
When you open a file or save a new file, then LibreOffice creates a lock file so that other users cannot edit the same file at the same time.
When you close that file then LibreOffice will delete the lock file it created.
If LibreOffice crashes, say from shutting down the operating system without first closing LibreOffice, then LibreOffice cannot delete the lock file. In that case, when you next try to open that file you will get the message that you see.
If you are sure that nobody else has the file open, you can search for and delete the lock file in the same folder as the actual file. The lock file will have a size of 1kb and will have a name in the form of .~lock.filename.odt# . The dot at the front indicates that it is a hidden file so you may have to turn on visibility for hidden files.
Note: if you open a file with Word it can wait up to a minute before it deletes its lock file. Writer respects that lock file too.
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Thank you. That’s a little “greek” to me, however I do appreciate the response and I will attempt to try the fix.
