Calc takes 17 minutes and longer to open some spreadsheets

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#1

I haven’t found any reasonable place to make note of this.
I know libreoffice has limited resources. I have not found anyone else complaining about this, which is unfortunate for me, because it ensures this problem is not a priority.
Starting a few months ago, certain calc spreadsheets started taking a very long time to open.
I had thought libreoffice had locked up so I forced it closed multiple times before I accidentally let it run, and discovered that my files would open eventually.
I happened to time it once, and a file took seventeen minutes to open.
Once open, everything acts normally.
I tried several suggestions from forum members who had slow-opening files, but their files took a long time like twenty seconds. Mine was in minutes. Nothing worked.
I re-installed Windows and it fixed the problem. Temporarily.
This issue has recurred multiple times over the last few months. Sometimes it seems a particular update has caused it, but sometimes it just starts occurring with no update having taken place.

Relatively simple files are not noticeably affected. Large files with lots of lookups seem to be in common with extreme delay.

Thank you,

J

#2

We can not help you without your sample file.

What file type are you using?
Which version of the LO are you using?
Are some huge size images embedded in the document?

1 Like
#3

I’m afraid you can’t help me. I will not provide my sample file. But it does occur with about ten files I use regularly. There is a tranche of files that have external lookups for every line, and those files are all a little less than 1 meg big (I have one open now which is 5600 records, 5600 lines, with very simple calculations). I have one unrelated file which has no external lookups, but has copious conditional formatting, and on every line lookups to a second sheet within the file. That file has 2000 records in one sheet, and 4000 records in the second sheet, which have lookups between each other. It is about 2.6 meg.
I use .ods. I have no images at all.
I have tried multiple versions of LO, originally thinking that I had got a corrupted installation, or that a version was buggy.
I even went back to a “really old” version but it did not fix it. Some versions I have tried:
LibreOffice_7.1.8_Win_x64
LibreOffice_7.2.6_Win_x64
LibreOffice_7.2.7_Win_x64
LibreOffice_7.3.2_Win_x64
LibreOffice_7.3.4_Win_x64
I would like to emphasize, the problem only occurs on one computer. I have two other computers which do not seem to be affected.
As I mentioned, re-installing Windows helped. But there is some interaction in the environment of this computer vis a vis LO, which apparently can recur without intervention. It does not appear to correspond with any particular update.
But I did uninstall 21H2 update because I was running out of options.
Again, it might have been effective, but then the problem recurred.
I did all firmware and driver updates through the Lenovo service app. I tried uninstalling some of those with no effect, and tried disabling some more exotic features in BIOS, such as multi-threading. No effect.

Thank you for your interest. I am posting with the hope that someone will reveal an identical problem so that some common element might be identified. Because it appears to me to be an unusual complaint. I hope I am doing something dumb which is causing it.

J

#4

Please read this, maybe it is helpful:

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#5

It worked!
I’ve switched my default printer back-and-forth about a dozen times, but when I have it as my actual printer, it bogs down the opening. When I put it on either one of the MS pdf or XPS, whatever that is, the files open normally.
My printer is shared by one of the other computers on the network.
I am going to horse around with it more later, to see if whether the other computers being on, and/or the printer being on, can cause the apparently intermittent problems.

Thank you,

J

#6

Update:
If the computer sharing the printer is online, the problem does not present. Makes no difference if the printer itself is online.
That explains the intermittent behavior.
Thanks again, to all, for your kind interest and assistance.

J

1 Like
#7

Update:
But today the problem is “fixed” again, even when the printer, and computer sharing the printer, is offline.
The files open normally.
This definitely constitutes a bug.
If there is a new user waiting thirty seconds for their file to open, and there is literally no way to determine what’s causing it, it’s a bug. Never mind seventeen minutes. That new user walks away from LibreOffice.
Thanks again, all.

J

#8

Yes, this is a “bug” of MS Windows. The behavior of MS Office applications is the same in this case.

#9

This is a bug in Calc - but unfortunately no one developer could repro it yet.

Libreoffice takes a lot of time to start with windows 11
#10

I personally encountered cases when opening Excel files took several minutes due to the fact that the workstation to which the default printer was connected was not connected to the local network.

If this is a Windows problem, how can a developer solve it in Calc? :slightly_smiling_face:

#11

The delay when accessing inaccessible printers indeed happens in Windows, and when it started, we can’t stop it. However, the question is - in which moment does that happen, and if we can avoid accessing the printer at all, or if we can move that access to an asynchronously running thread (if that can be delay-loaded).

Thus, until it’s reproducible on developers’ system, and until we can tell for sure why it happens, this should be considered a bug in Calc (which it likely is, irrespective if a similar problem could also affect other software).

#12

As an example, we cannot open a Calc document (show the screen to the user) without “talking to the printer” if the file was saved with a “Page break” view.

#13

Right. However, as already mentioned, until we can repro the problem in controlled environment, we can’t blindly assume something like that. And I actually suspect that the majority of affected users do not have page view active by default in their documents.

#14

The same applies to Normal view if page breaks were shown at the time the file was saved (prorerty ShowPageBreaks in settings.xml is "True"). The last case is very common.

Checked: Excel does not display page breaks when opening a file in Normal view (and there is no similar property in structure of \xl\worksheets\sheet1.xml). At runtime we can change Worksheet.DisplayPageBreaks property.

#15

But this latter case is possible to delay-load.

#16

Can’t just answer “Yes”, the forum engine requires at least 10 characters. :smile:
Or (how Excel does) not show page breaks when opening a document in Normal View.

1 Like
#17

Yes​​​​​​​.

2 Likes
#18

Also note that the original problem (tdf#42673) is very old (at least 3.4), while until tdf#124983 (i.e., 6.4.0 (with immediate revert in 6.4.1), then 7.2.0+), the page breaks weren’t shown in Calc until an operation that needed to calculate borders, even when the “Page breaks” was enabled.

So again: we can discuss it here ad libitum, but the only constructive way forward is somehow make reproduction available for devs (one way is someone experiencing the problem to become dev themselves :wink:).

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