Calc Scrolling Causes View Corruption on Macs

For a while now (at least 3 updates) I’ve had problems with calc. They are all related to data entry and scrolling. Symptoms:

1 - enter or change something in a cell - number, text, formula, formatting - hit return and nothing appears or changes in the cell. Scroll up or down until the cell disappears off the screen then scroll back. The cell will display what was entered or changed. Related cells (e.g. formulas referenced) don’t change until the scroll is done.

2 - scroll an existing spreadsheet up or down or change a row height (e.g. overrun a line when entering text in a cell with alignment set to wrap automatically) and the screen becomes corrupted. Rows and text overlap each other. Some rows are repeated. It’s always a row-thing, columns don’t exhibit the same behaviour when scrolling left to right.

The corruption can happen at any time with vertical scrolling - i.e. not only when a cell’s contents are changed. It’s not limited to particular files. It’s not related to row/column freezing. The screen can be made to look OK again by scrolling content off the screen and back on again - sometimes it takes a couple of goes - but it has to be done after almost every change to a cell. It looks like parts of the spreadsheet freeze on the screen when scrolling and then other areas above or below scroll over them - almost like screen memory isn’t being cleared

Sometimes when clicking between tabs bits of the contents of the tab switched from are visible in (behind?) the tab switched to.

Other odd things - sometimes if I switch from normal to page view then back to normal the page view markers don’t disappear and then scrolling barely works at all.

I think I’ve uploaded a screenshot (I’m new here so not sure how it works)

Thanks in advance for any help.

Libre Office screenshot.pdf (254.5 KB)

EDIT- The difference between files/sheets that exhibit this behaviour and those that don’t is related to some cells formatted with Automatic Text Wrapping and/or some other cells being merged. The file I screenshot for this post can be “cured” of the problem by setting all columns to to the width of their contents - i.e. no wrapping in any cells and merging the merged cells. Once this is done then I can’t re-create the over-writing and other display issues and the file behaves normally. Even re-creating the merges and auto-wrap doesn’t cause the behaviour. Note that the files that exhibit this behaviour are all ex-Excel files opend and saved as ods file - probably. I’ll play some more and see if I can confirm.

EDIT2 - It’s definitely related to auto-wrap. I don’t think merged cells are involved. Another file that exhibited the behaviour was fixed by removing all the auto-wrap formatting then I autosized column widths, reset column widths manually so they fit on the screen as I want them, then re-formatting with auto-wrap set for all cells. It took a bit of fiddling and didn’t work first time - but now it seems OK. This file too was created in excel.

Not sure if this helps. I’ll leave this open to see if anyone chips in. I’m not sure of the protocol here; this seems like a bug to me.

Mac Monterey 12.6.2
Libre Office 7.4.4.2

1 Like

Hi Amy! Thanks for a detailed account of that issue. And welcome here!

It would be great if you could report it on our bug reporting site: https://bugs.documentfoundation.org
I had a look and couldn’t find the issue already reported.

Please make sure you copy and paste the info from LibreOffice > About in the bug report, and also attach a file in which the issue occurs, if possible.
Much appreciated!

I can’t raise a bug report because I haven’t got bugzilla account and I don’t want one. All my files are personal so I wouldn’t upload one anyway. I’ve fixed all the files I’ve got as per my OP Edit. TLDR - Select all cells. Disable Auto-wrap. Autosize all colums to content width. Re-adjust column size as required. Re-enable auto-wrap as required. Problem gone. I think it only exhibited in files which were created in Excel.

I am experiencing the same symptom exactly (as far as I can tell), albeit with Mac OS 13.6 (Macbook Air) and LO 7.5.9.2. I tried reinstalling LO (which I think was 7.5.8.n before); did not fix it.
I do have an account and will report the bug if there isn’t a report already, or a solution.

It sounds like Bug 155266 - VIEWING / SCROLLING: very laggy jerky scrolling on macOS Intel Writer: scroll lag

The bug has been fixed for 24.2 and 7.6.5 due out the week beginning 29th January, see ReleasePlan - The Document Foundation Wiki

Pre-release (beta) of 24.2 is linked from Download LibreOffice | LibreOffice - Free Office Suite - Based on OpenOffice - Compatible with Microsoft

Bug 155266 just talks about laggy scrolling. It doesn’t mention the rows disappearing and overlapping each other. Also, the behaviour isn’t laggy - i.e. it doesn’t sort itself out if you wait long enough. Since I posted the OP I’ve bought a brand new Mac and I didn’t transfer any settings from my old one, just files and a clean install of LibreOffice. The problem is still there for me in 7.6.2.1.

In that case, report a bug, How to Report Bugs in LibreOffice - The Document Foundation Wiki

I can’t raise a bug report because I haven’t got bugzilla account and I don’t want one. I’ve got a bodge that works for me and I can live with it.