Can't get writer2xhtml extension to work again

[NorbVor]

After working for months with the writer2xhtml extension very successfully, Writer crashed and hung in a CPU loop when trying to start up the next time. I had to abort it from the task manager. Thereafter, it successfully started up again and recovered the open documents. But now writer2xhtml extension is not working any longer. It’s toolbar buttons don’t appear any longer.

The extension still appears in the extension manager. Hence, I tried to uninstall it and reinstall. But the uninstall doesn’t work either. It brings the error message:
“There is no such extension deployed: org.openoffice.legacy.cdb4ecec_writer2xhtml.oxt” …

What can I do now? Do I have to uninstall and reinstall LibreOffice and will that help at all? Or is there a way to manually cleanup the extension manager entry for this extension?

[KamilLanda]

First way (easy but lossy) is to reset the User Profile in the Safe Mode. But you will loose all your personal settings.

Next way is to edit the file uno_packages.pmap. This file is in the user profile. The Path is: …\LibreOffice\4\user\uno_packages\cache\uno_packages.pmap. I’m under Windows, there is for example C:\Users\kamil\AppData\Roaming\LibreOffice\4\user\uno_packages\cache\uno_packages.pmap).

Open this file in some text editor (like Notepad) and select two lines with the writer2xhmtl. It looks like this:

The second line starts with the name of the directory in next sub-directory. Remember this name (in the picture it is marked by red color) and delete the two lines. And then go to to the sub-directory uno_packages (…\LibreOffice\4\user\uno_packages\cache\uno_packages\) and delete the directory with the remembered name.
Now the extension should be completely uninstalled, so you can install it again.

[NorbVor]

Thank you very very much for your fast reply! This almost did the job. I don’t see the extension in the extension manager any more. But when trying to reinstall it, I get the error message:

Insert duplicate implementation name
org.openoffice.da.comp.writer2xhtml.EpubOptionsDialog

and the extension is no being installed. Do you also have a cure for that?

[KamilLanda]

Writer2xhtml is really difficult extension. I discovered it is also in next subdirectory → …\LibreOffice\4\user\uno_packages\cache\registry\com.sun.star.comp.deployment.help.PackageRegistryBackend\ and there is the file backenddb.xml. So I presume you need to delete the xml tags with the writer2xhtml from it, and also delete the subdirectory.

[NorbVor]

Hi Kamil! This worked nicely, thank you very much. The extension now installed again. The only problem I have left now is that the toolbar of the extension doesn’t show the toolbar buttons, but instead text-based buttons. I can’t explain how this happened. The re-install should have installed the toolbar icons, but apparently they are missing now. Is there any directory I can look into in order to fix that?

Thank you for your very kind help.

[KamilLanda]

I edited 2 files and deleted 2 directories from my 2 previous description and then I try to find next files with the phrase writer2xhtml. The result is next 13 files with this phrase.
Unluckily I don’t know where are the necessity informations about Writer2xhtml toolbar. You can do the same in your computer and clean the XML tags and delete old files. But if you will do some mistake for example in the registrymodifications.xcu, probably you can reset all user profile :-(.
For searching the phrase in the files I use the FreeCommander (http://www.freecommander.com, menu File/Search…)

It is possible to remove XML tags from:
4x backenddb.xml
configmrg.ini
uno.rc
registrymodifications.xcu

And probably it is possible to delete:
ToolbarOptionPages.xcu
OptionPages.xcu
AddonsAOO4.xcu
Addons.xcu

But there are also 2 binary files:
common_.rdb
common.rdb
and I don’t know how to remove the writer2xhtml informations from these files. Maybe it is not necessity, but it is some chance the Libre will be more unstable in the future.

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I see the Writer2xhtml is very very very difficult extension and really it isn’t 100% possible to remove it manually. One or two years back I tested the Writer2xhtml, and it also crashed in my computer. But for successful reinstallation I used only first method (with the file uno_packages.pmap) and it was ok. Someday probably you will get next crash with this extension, so maybe the best way is to reset the all User Profile in the LibreOffice Safe Mode and do the regular backups of the user profile. Then you can copy all files from the backup to the …\LibreOffice\4\user

[NorbVor]

Thank you, Kamil, for this comprehensive answer! You were really a great help.