Has LO become subject to a modern variant of AARD code?

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#1

AARD code is a prehistoric reference for many of the folks reading this (17 April 1992). However, consider the following:-

I’ve been asking & answering questions on ask.lo since May 30 2015. Sometime after the beginning, but recently more & more, I have noticed that a certain kind of question pops up, something like the following:-

"Please help me with <an-unbelievably-stupid-behaviour> that I’m getting with Windows-<xx>"

“Windows-<xx>” = winVista, 7, 8 and especially 10. UAC errors strongly suspected.

Examples of “<an-unbelievably-stupid-behaviour>” include:

  • “A problem caused the program to stop working correctly. Windows will close the program and notify you if a solution is available.” (win7, Q200)
  • (on a new install of win7, no prior OO/LO install) (paraphrase): “please close LibreOffice 3.4” (Q2333)
  • “freezes when I try too use the format menu” (win10)
  • “when I double-click the MSI install file it does nothing” (newly reinstalled Vista)
  • “application was unable to start correctly” (win10)
  • “applications hangs” (win10)
  • “Error 1402. Could not open key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE32\SOFTWARE\…|SharedDlls” (win8.1)
  • “installer does not have sufficient rights” (win7)

Now also under Mac:

  • ““LibreOffice” will damage your computer. You should move it to the Trash.” (El Capitan, Q60334)

Possible Tags:-

I’ve used, supported & programmed Windows since MS-DOS days, including for the major UK computer distributor. I therefore know how bad Windows can get. But I’ve never seen a range of problems like this before.

At first I blamed the LO developers for being too inept to program UAC Windows. Then I took to describing lo-5 under win10 as “a total dog”. Then I remembered that M$ has history in this business. After all, M$-Office is one of (if not the best) money-earner for M$, and LO is probably the greatest threat to M$'s income.

Which brings us back to AARD code & some prime examples of M$'s tendency to use any underhand, technological method that they can find to undermine their competitors. In brief:

In the days of MS-DOS & PC-DOS, and just as Windows-3 was due to be released, DR-DOS was the greatest threat to M$ incomes. Windows was considered to be the future, but DOS was what paid the bills.

DR-DOS was owned by Digital Research (then by Novell, then by Caldera); it was a far better version of DOS than MS or PC-DOS. Crucially, the early Windows required DOS to function. The utter fear for M$ was that folks would use DR-DOS rather than MS/PC-DOS. M$ placed the legendary AARD code into the win-code to prevent that from happening. Further, they then obscured the code to prevent it being found.


PS
The settlement with Caldera paid in November 2009 was $280 million. M$ income in 2009/10 was $19 billion on $62 billion revenue.

So:- has that happened again? Is M$ deliberately causing install/usage errors for LO under modern Windows?

2015-10-17 update:

One mechanism for the infection would be Windows Update (see Q5271, lo-3.6) (a very nice epidemiological connection there between fleas & bots).

This would certainly explain the extraordinary run of staggeringly stupid errors that LO users are suffering under UAC Windows. Either that, or it is ordinary Windows’ incompetence, or the LO developers truly are utterly inept.

Definitively fixing the dreaded Error 1335 libreoffice1.cab error
Libre on Windows ... bugs
#2

I attributed the uptick in complaints to wider adoption of LO on Windows. Add this to doc and docx format interoperability issues and Outlook non-support of obvious universal internet calendaring protocols. That said, LO 4.x is increasingly rock solid under Windows, LO 5 does run pretty well with some discrete exceptions, and big picture there are many Linux packages that on Windows never get beyond alpha-quality software which demonstrates the challenge of what LO is trying to accomplish.

#3

@AlexKemp: Whats the reason for updating any 2 day this useless tinfoil hat theory – are you after the most-clicked-Question-award ???
From me the DownVote for now.
postscriptum: I’m definitely no M$-fanboy the last 15 years I’m working close to 100Percent on Linux-OS

#4

The reason, dear blinkered @karolus, is that the latest Mac now says “LibreOffice will damage your computer”, which seems worthy of note and–even if not identical–in the same district. FWIW I work 100% under ancient Debian.

#5

This question is too vague to answer, and it might be more valuable if you could be more specific.
Windows operating software is expensive and windows office software even more expensive.
Free operating systems for example Ubuntu are ratherondhap
good but require still a lot of inexperienced users.

If a troublesome error is experienced in windows OS then I be interested in the question of comparable problems exists in these OS’es?

#6

Hi BlueBike. I think that you misunderstood. This isn’t an attack on winOS; in general, I have found them to be well designed & extremely competent. No, it is far worse than that. Starting from the knowledge that the M$ management have demonstrated utter corruption in their business morals, this Q considers the possibility that M$ has set out to surreptitiously undermine LO upon the Windows platform.

PS
Using the word “if” about troublesome winOS errors demonstrates naïvety.

#7

I have M$ Office and lO (v. 6.4) installed on my dual boot Win 7 / CentOS workstation. The hardware is rock solid, including ECC RAM. Yet, under win 7, if I work in LO writer, then start M$ Word, and go back and forth between the two, LO becomes unstable and the file will become corrupt in some way - either styles will stop working, or some tools will misbehave, leading me to believe that there is some form of AARD code in Word. Even just going from LO to Word and back with one file is bound to open a can of worms. It could also be that LO is simply unstable, but given M$ past hostility toward Linux, DR-DOS, Netscape and so on, I am tempted to believe that this is more than just a coincidence.

#8

I thought that perhaps an error autopsy might get a little closer to an answer to this question (if there actually is one):

No-error-code:

Immediately following error-free installation under x64 Windows, any attempt to run an LO app gives only the following message:

“LibreOffice 3.5 has stopped working.”

“A problem caused the program to stop working correctly. Windows will close the program and notify you if a solution is available.”

I would rate the AARD possibility as highest on this Q200 from early 2012 simply because of the extraordinary error message. There are many traces of the identical error string across the Internet, but I never found an error code.

error 1335 / 2350:

(Installation error: earliest report is Q509 (lo-3.5), current latest is Q59408 (lo-5.0.2))

The person downloads the MSI file then attempts to install it. The result is an error message from the Installation Wizard:

“Error 1335. The cabinet file ‘libreoffice1.cab’ required for this installation is corrupt and cannot be used. This could indicate a network error, an error reading from the CD-ROM, or a problem with the package.”

[Result dialog offers ‘Abort’, ‘Retry’ or ‘Ignore’; selecting ‘Ignore’ option results in Error 2350 and the installation ‘rolls back’.]

The AARD possibility on this one is high only if the install file is pristine.

Fixing Error 1335:

fdo#70521 is just one of many bug reports which describes this error very well. Essentially, the error says that the multi-hundred-megabyte download file–which for Windows should have an MSI suffix–is either incomplete or corrupted. As described within the bug response, there are 2 methods to check this, one easy & one difficult:-

  1. (easy) Right-click on the file in Explorer:
  • choose ‘Properties’
  • open ‘Digital Signatures’ tab
  • click on ‘Details’.

You should get a new windows with the text ‘This digital signature is OK.’. If it’s not the case, or you don’t have the ‘Digital Signatures’ tab at all, then your installation file is corrupted.

  1. (not so easy) Compare the hash of the file with the one from libreoffice.org. In order to see the correct hashes, you should click on the ‘Info’ link located at the bottom of the big green download button (near ‘Torrent’ link).
  • 7-Zip (freeware) has a ‘Test’ button which works on MSI files.

error 1714:

My first response to this error in reference to the developers was hashtag #slacker but, after reading the sole bug report fdo#33939 and thinking about it for a while, it should surely actually be hashtag #slackerGenius.

Autopsy:

This is another M$-Windows installation error. It should only ever occur with LO-3 or early LO-4 and only if an earlier version is already installed.

  1. A multi-hundred MB LO-3.4 MSI file is downloaded & the Install Wizard begun.
  1. Initial setup questions.
  2. After clicking an <Install> button a pop-up dialog says:
    “The feature you are trying to use is on a network resource that is unavailable.


    Click OK to try again, or enter an alternate path to a folder containing the installation package ‘libreoffice33.msi’ in the box below.”
  3. Clicking <OK> gives another dialog:
    “The path ‘C:\Documents and Settings$user\Desktop\LibreOffice 3.3 (4d36e9e0) Installation Files\libreoffice33.msi’ cannot be found. Verify that you have access to this location and try again, or try to find the installation package ‘libreoffice33.msi’ in a folder from which you can install the product LibreOffice 3.3.”

    (At this point, recall that the user is trying to install LO-3.4)
  4. Clicking <Cancel> gives the dialog:
    “Error 1714. The older version of LibreOffice 3.4 cannot be removed. Contact your technical support group.”

The Windows Registry is a database with multiple uses. One of those is during program installation/uninstallation. The LO-3/4 developers neglected to make use of the Registry in an MS-approved manner & the system is therefore attempting to access the earlier-version install file as to know how to uninstall the earlier version. In this case, that MSI file has been removed & the system complains, stamps it’s feet & will not continue to play the game.

The AARD possibility on this one is indeterminate. It is no coincidence that computer programmers, accountants & those on the autistic spectrum often share characteristics. I would therefore submit that It is entirely possible to blame both the MS- & the LO-programmers for being either too-autistic and/or insufficiently autistic (according to your personal POV). However, the fact that modern LO no longer suffers error-1714 errors is surely utter genius (as long as there are zero side-effects).

Fixing Error 1714:

i) Download the earlier-version MSI

ii) Right-click on the MSI & choose ‘remove’.

Previous LO versions can be downloaded at:

Index of /libreoffice/old

#9

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