LO Calc Styles Editing Freezes

English
#1

Hi All,

I’m experiencing a frustrating problem with LO Calc freezing when I try to edit an existing Style definition (see attached screenshot) that’s used for conditional formatting.

LO Calc Style Edit Frozen
LO Calc Style Edit Frozen1045×808 273 KB

Before posting a copy of the document, I thought I might just try creating this post as a “hit & run” question, to see if anyone knows anything about this as a previously known problem, which has an easily identifiable and simple solution.

Mac Libre Office version data attached:

Screenshot 2026-06-06 at 9.58.05 pm
Screenshot 2026-06-06 at 9.58.05 pm772×457 175 KB

Troubleshooting steps taken:

  1. I tried creating a new document and importing the sheet from the broken document that is used for the conditional formatting, and the Style editing works fine.

  2. So, I tried opening LO in Safe Mode with the original broken document. No change. Style editing freezes LO.

  3. Also tried renaming user folder, but same result as above. No change.

Any help anyone can offer is much appreciated

Regards.

CT

Now that we've lost Mike Kaganski .......!?!
#2

Maybe some sheets (even some invisible sheets) or some cells are protected in the original document.

Please upload your ODF type sample file here.

1 Like
#3

Hey @Zizi64 ,

Thanks very much for the reply.

I definitely haven’t intentionally protected anything in the sheet, but I’m not the most experienced user, so anything is possible.

My workbook is pretty large, so assuming it wouldn’t natively post here, I’ve prepped it as a WeTransfer download.

I’ve left it saved on the sheet I’ve been having the problem with called “PandL”, and I’ve left the Style editing window open. The two styles that I most recently created are called:
“A Max Profit Highlight 1” and “A Min Profit Highlight 1”.

The particular edit I’m trying on these that freezes with the SPWOD, is to increase the decimal places field to “2” as in my original screenshot above. I get the same behaviour on both my older X86 Mac, and my newer Apple Silicon Mac, so the assumption is the problem is somehow embedded in the document characteristics itself.

Thanks again in advance for any help you can offer.

Regards.

CT

#4

I’ve prepped it as a WeTransfer download.

I will not register (sign up) to that service.
Just upload a prepared (reduced) file here, or use a directly available storage service.

#5

OK - I have downloaded the file without singing up.

#6

Yeah, I’m generally the same. The only reason I use them, is because it doesn’t require a sign up.

#7

Your sample file has a lot of the different Cell styles, but the cells are formatted by manual formatting method. I just deleted the Conditional formatting first, and then I deleted the Direct formattings in the whole document.
The file size has not reduced significally.
After the modifications the error is still in your file.
Then I unpacked the content of the ODF archive (That is a ZIP archive really.)
The size of the Content.xml is 1.2 GiB. It is a huge file. it will make slow the process, and maybe causes the freezing.
.
Then I deleted the Graphical objects in Design mode. The size of the Content.xml has not reduced significally.
.
There are lots of “empty rows” with predefined formulas, that shows empty strings.
There are lots of macros: why not copy the predefined formulas by a macro to the next (new) line only when it is needed really? Then at the beginning of the fill will be less cells to recalculate. Maybe you never will use the 32000th row…

#8

Hey Zizi,

Thanks very much for the reply, and sorry for the delay getting back to you.
_
Yes, this workbook is bit of a beast! It shows all the hallmarks of my inexperience with spreadsheet building, as well as my naive building and rebuilding over many months, and the discoveries and lessons of having to “shift the goalposts” so many times, over how many rows I need to build in for future-proofing purposes.
_
For instance, I started off with 1000 rows as a “ridiculous” target I’ll never reach. What you see on the version of the workbook is only a couple of months data, yet it easily runs to processing 9-10K rows of data.
_
When I load the full 18 months worth of data that I’ve collected onto my Apple Silicon Mac (which can handle this amount of information), I very quickly discovered that, with a back-tester of this scale, the row count has already swiftly swelled out to around 24,000 rows. So 32,000 was just my latest “buffer zone” value.
_
And you will possibly have spotted that I’ve already built out the plumbing for moving all the large data chunks to an SQL database, but meantime, I’m really not convinced that the size of the raw data is the cause of my Style editing freezes.
_
But then, as you can now see, I’m very unqualified and certainly not experienced enough to make any claims about the potential capabilities of LO.
_
Any suggestions what direction I should go in next?
_
Thanks again for your efforts on my behalf. Much appreciated.
_
Regards.
_
CT

#9

Actually, on my journey of discovery, this is a really interesting idea I’d never thought of. How would the macro get triggered to populate another row with the predefined formula?

#10

It is depends on the macro code. The simpliest way to use a button or user defined menu item, with “Add a new line” label, and with the assigned macro.

#11

OK, as you can see I am using buttons and “Content Changed” on the sheets to trigger macros, but the way the back-tester works, it would need to dynamically add rows when datasets like the FINAL sheet exit auction contents change, hence my needing to “pre-load” enough spare rows.
_
I have previously tried working with dynamically changing named ranges, but they never seemed to work right.

#12

And, sorry, yes, the point I was trying to make is: I’d then have to push the button 100 times to add another hundred rows, even though I don’t know what the row number requirements will be during/after the current calculation cycle, so even a button that adds rows in chunks of 100, is not that different from “pre-loading” a certain amount, which is kind of what I’m trying to do with my 32,000 number.

#13

The strange thing I’ve discovered is, it’s not ANY Style editing that freezes the program. It seems to be only when I try to make a change to the Format Code.

I’m really stumped here.

I wonder if @mikekaganski is around to help?

#14

Hi all,

Just bumping this post back up to the top to keep it visible, as I’m still urgently seeking a solution.

Hoping for some input from: @mikekaganski ?

Regards

CT

#15

Bumping again.

@mikekaganski

#16

New WeTransfer link of the ODS documentab ove, that has expired.

#17

Bumping again for visibility and to refresh WeTransfer link.

Regards.

CT

#18

Yes, over time, that comes across as quite intrusive. :confused:
No one likes having to sign up via unfamiliar links.

You can try to find the error yourself.
I believe it’s called bisecting.

Make a copy of the file and then split it.
Check which of the parts is prone to errors.
You can repeat this process multiple times.
If you have a part that is small enough and contains the error, you can upload it here.
It’s worth a try, isn’t it?

1 Like
#19

Hi again Hrbrgr,
_
You will see from Zizi64’s post above, that he discovered that there is no sign up required to download WeTransfer links.

WeTransfer is one of the most well known file hosting platforms in the world, and has been for years, except that on LO forums “No one likes having to sign up via unfamiliar links.”

“If you have a part that is small enough and contains the error, you can upload it here.”

Yes, OK, but what happens if the minimally sized file that errors, is still above the forum file size limit? Seems like a bit of wasted effort to me, but I will try it.
_
I’m not trying to be difficult here, I simply tried to get the file posted quickly, and in the most convenient way. Anyone can click on the WeTransfer link and it immediately downloads the file, no questions asked, just like a file hosted here, so I never thought it would become such an issue.
_
Anyway, thanks for taking a look at the problem for me. Much appreciated.
_
Regards.
_
CT

_

#20

This statement is not true (at least in relation to me :slight_smile: ).

1 Like

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