I may have found an answer to my issue. I say “may” because it is still intermittent, but I have apparently worked around it.
I have an answer and an explanation.
The Concise Problem:
I created a Master Document and formatted various the headers and TOC labels with different colors and font sizes according to my liking. Then, when I import documents, they conform to my master document. However, intermittently, (much more often than not) the master document crashes when inserting single documents, and almost always when inserting multiple documents.
I tried fixing it by backing down from the 6.3.x version I was using to 6.2.8.2 (x64) which at first appeared to work. It turns out that it was intermittently working.
I believe the cause of the problem is that the master document has a xerox glitch. The more I copy it, the more corrupt it becomes. The master document does not like being copied to a new folder.
The LOOOOOOONG explanation (for those who wish to learn from my experience).
I backed up to the latest stable version of LibreOffice. When I did, most of my existing master documents did not seem to have a problem. This morning, however, I created a new master document and inserted four pre-written pages.
After setting up the new computer to replace the one I smashed to pieces for crashing again (just kidding, but I felt like it, LOL)
I created a new, empty master document. I could insert anything without it crashing, including a folder with 50 .txt files.
I inserted all the documents that ever crashed and it never failed, but I did not have all the formatting I had set up in the Master document.
I did test several of my older versions of my master document and it seems if I did not move them, some crashed and some worked. Any of the ones that worked when in their home folder crashed when I moved them somewhere else to insert files.
In some cases, the files I was inserting were all in the same folder but in most cases, the master files are in a folder and all the content are in different folders under that one. Each master document drew from different files in different folders so I can reuse the content more easily.
I discovered that when I created an empty master document, a) I didn’t need to move it, it had no formatting and b) if I did, it did not crash.
My solution was to create a standard ODT file, add a TOC and add a list of each heading from heading 1 through heading 10, format each heading and color-match the table the TOC. Additionally, I formatted a Quote box, which really looks great to documents having quotes now!
I saved the ODT file as “Master Document Insert” for now, but I plan to create a folder called “Master Document Inserts” where I can create different inserts and give them different names. By placing them in a sub-folder to where I am working, I just need to insert that document first, then I can delete it from the master document. The formatting of the Master Document will match the first one I insert. I tested this inserting 25 odt documents, a few that had different formatting for different headers, most having default headers and formatting. Even my quotes look better in the box!
Interesting Note:
When I inserted the master document insert and deleted it, it remained in the master document as the “text” and TOC, but when I inserted the existing documents and inserted the TOC and updated all, the insert document disappeared but all the formatting was applied to all the documents inserted. So, all is well.
Note to Coding/Debugging Contributors:
I lost most of my productive writing time today dealing with this issue, but I am NOT complaining! I’m an old programmer from the DOS days, so I understand how bugs can be, and this program is far more complex than anything I ever worked on.
My first master document dates back to 2014 but I started seriously working with master documents towards the end of 2016. I have been using OO or LO since '08. When I left my last comment that I was backing down to 6.2.8.2 (x64), I felt badly that I could not help further with the issue.
You folk have done a wonderful job, so I am glad to have spent time today reporting my findings. I have watched this line of Office Suite grow from being way behind MS Office to being a spectacular office suite, that as far as I can know, meets or exceeds anything MS has done with theirs.
I hope my answer here helps you focus on where to debug the issue, and I hope it can be used by anyone else with the issue find a working solution.
You folk are great! Thank you for all your work and contributions.
