Mac: beach ball ... beach ball ... beach ball

English
#37

Hi @hexadecagram @Marcus_SC @ksdavidc! Mac user here, same problem on macOS Monterey (I skipped Big Sur), running LO 7.3. Several years ago (can’t remember which macOS) freezings occurred every now and then, but now LO has become utterly unusable on macOS (On Mac: LibreOffice keeps crashing) if factory settings remain unchanged.

What has helped me, I think, is simply turning OFF

Load/Save > General
Save AutoRecovery information every: [X] minutes

Freezings still occur but a less often. I am now able to work one or even two hours without having to Force Quit LO. https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=146598#c11

#38

@jeshkhol Yeah, I had the same result. stopping autosave :frowning: did seem to improve it…for now. will keep watching…

#39

Run in safe mode, wait. Beach balls WHILE IN SAFE MODE!
Leave nearly blank brand new 4-character project open for 20 min with no user interaction, return: Beach Ball
Copy text and try to copy into Chrome: Both Chrome and LO give beachballs.

Even turning off autosave is not working anymore for me.

I am taking bets this has zero to do with any particular user action. It is happening in the background, so can show up at any time.

Thank you @hexagram for taking the steps you are taking.

1 Like
#40

@ksdavidc The spinning wheel still occurs frequently here as well, despite autosave being turned off. What seems to help often is to wait a few seconds after selecting and copying items, i.e. before clicking into a different app (or even into a different cell in Calc).

Also, I musn’t double-click in the Finder to open a file if LO isn’t already running, or else the spinning wheel occurs. So I always need to start LO before trying to open a file.

I manually save (Cmd-S) several times a minute, especially before selecting anything, which means that I haven’t lost any data so far. I’m not sure yet how to best deal with the File Recovery dialogue – sometimes I need to click Discard in order to keep the spinning wheel from reocurring, sometimes I need to recover the files for the same reason.

In other words, working with LibreOffice on macOS Monterey is possible despite the frequent hangings. However, constantly having to deal with these hangings is enormously time-consuming, and therefore I currently cannot recommend anyone to use LibreOffice on a Mac. This will change as soon as these hangings don’t occur any more because LibreOffice is very powerful.

@hexagram, thanks for working on this. I have saved many dozens of error reports related to these hangings over the past few weeks so let me know if you think they could be useful.

#41

@jeshkhol Thanks for the tips, I will definitely try them. Yeah, I am using Pages as what I hope will be a temporary alternative, but for some things that doesn’t work. I got the computer specifically so I could port my work to a faster computer, so for me it’s definitely a let down, but i like LO and have hope it may get sorted.

Where would I find the error reports/logs/flags/diagnostics/ what have you? I would be more than glad to send them along if that might help. I am currently testing 7.0.6 to see if a very old version will work. I need something…

#42

7.0.6 no go, but:

Turning off JAVA seems to have helped!! It’s a new machine and no jre is installed. Could that be it???..

I spoke too soon. D**n

addendum: well, not so bad, it did crash, but no beach ball. working for now. will see…

#43

Maybe @hexagram can suggest where to send crash reports to?

If you haven’t yet done so, please add your voice to the bug database (https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=146598) since developers who may be able to fix this will look there rather than here. The more Mac users report experiencing the same freezing problem, the earlier dealing with this bug may be prioritised.

#44

please add your voice to the bug

You are welcome to comment on bugs constructively, but please don’t add any “me too”-like comments that only make bugs unmaintainable. Comment count is not used as priority marker; any comment is only useful if it helps to fix the bug (e.g., adds something substantial missing in prior comments: like specific repro steps).

OTOH you are welcome to CC yourself to bugs - CC count is definitely one of priority markers that we use.

#45

let machine unattended with 4 files open for 6 hours. came back to beachballs.

Also, just reinstalled and opened and then closed. Got the recovery screen with NO files!! recover that LO!!

I posted first on the bug site, then found this. AM going to update the bugs site with whatever information I do find. I am positing here to help anyone else who might encounter this…

#46

Another point to note when you “update the bugs site with whatever information I do find”. @hexadecagram seems to be able to repro and mentioned they intent to try to handle this. It possibly doesn’t make sense to add anything at this point, unless that’s really something ground-breaking.

Anyway: when there’s some problematic bug where there is some problem easily observable by some users, but devs can’t repro on their systems, it usually gives little to add “I see it by doing these steps”: more important is to find out the details of system/program configuration that is likely the reason why it is easily repro on some systems, and not on others (it could be locale, or installed system update packages, or programs running in parallel such as clipboard managers, or … hundreds of possibilities, but that is often the crucial piece that is making some bugs hang unfixed for decades without any hope, until one day, some developer happens by chance to come across such a constellation).

#47

Hi all,

I have also disabled Java and it does seem to extend the time between beach balls.

It does seem to have something to do with autosave, BUT I have not had the same setting enabled as @jeshkhol (Preferences > Load/Save > General > Save AutoRecovery information every __ minutes). I recall seeing some leftover lock files in the past as well.

I also use Nextcloud and that was my first suspicion when I first encountered all this. Do any of you try to use documents stored in cloud filesystems? iCloud? Onedrive? Google Drive? Dropbox? Anything?

I’ve also found that some of the other programs I use in MacPorts have behaved strangely, seemingly due to my recent upgrade to Monterey. What versions of macOS have you seen LibreOffice problems with? For me, this first started to happen with certain versions of LO on Big Sur and now that I’m on Monterey, almost allversions of LO. Sound right to the rest of you?

If any of you have any files that would be useful for debugging you can email them to me directly at acc@hexadecagram.org. Please, however, to keep the conversation here so that we can all benefit. :wink:

I think you all deserve to know that my schedule is rather full at the moment so it’s likely going to be some time before any of my own code gets worked into the project but when I am through the initial training process with my mentor, I will be doing my best to make sure that LibreOffice continues to be the Mac office suite we all prefer!

#49

Thank you @hexadecagram for your thoughts, and for attempting to solve this riddle once time allows.

To answer your questions: No, none of my LO files are stored in a cloud filesystem. Neither have I MacPorts installed.

There were occasional hangings/freezings before I had upgraded to macOS Monterey (I skipped Big Sur). However, with Monterey these problems – now occurring not daily, but several times an hour – have become so frequent that I fear most Mac users being faced with them will simply quit using LibreOffice.

It’s interesting that you mention Java. I have not disabled it yet for fear some tool I use would not work any longer. I use mainly LO Writer and LO Calc, and I rely on regular expressions a lot (such as \p{Punct}). I don’t use the command line. Do you think it would be safe to disable Java? (Regrettably, I fail to understand anything written here: Development/Java - The Document Foundation Wiki)

#50

A user-oriented overview is in FAQ.

#51

Thanks, but this link takes me not to an FAQ page but to Bugzilla – Enter Bug: LibreOffice

#52

@mikekaganski I think your point about configuration is good, but aside from version of software and system, what do you think are the pieces needed.

as a start:
Version: 7.2.6.2 / LibreOffice Community Build ID: b0ec3a565991f7569a5a7f5d24fed7f52653d754 CPU threads: 16; OS: Mac OS X 10.16; UI render: default; VCL: osx Locale: en-US (en_US.UTF-8); UI: en-US Calc: threaded

Should I send the hang reports to the bug site or to @hexagram.

#53

@ksdavidc I can’t speak for @hexadecagram; nor do I use macOS myself (so I can’t know what could be really useful here). What I wrote here was just a word of caution to consider when you want to add things to a bug that affects many, and thus may easily become cluttered with “me-too”-like comments, or with steps basically repeating what is already known. These comments do not enhance the bug report, but make it more difficult for a developer to understand it. Use my warning with a common sense, not as something universally applicable. And feel free to ignore my words if you are unsure if they make sense in a specific case - it’s better to add something duplicating than to avoid adding something really new.

Always send things publicly to the bug tracker - that allows the data to help developers later even if some developer would not succeed. (I wish @hexadecagram to succeed wholeheartedly!)

#32

I am having the same problem. see here: https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=148829#add_comment

In my case the program is effectively unusable. Also tried installing older and beta versions, to no avail.

How can this be troubleshooted to find out why it is happening?

#33

ksdavidc –

You are not alone.
Over on the forum for Keyboard Maestro there are two threads about LibreOffice crashing in similar ways.

In the first thread below, the developer of Keyboard Maestro actually did troubleshoot and he posted a report of problems found.
But since cause of problem is LO, no solution possible from outside.

1 Like
#35

thanks. I am not really skilled enough to even understand all that is happening in those threads, but as I use it I am saving often and just trying random things from time to time and trying to figure out what the trigger might be. I can’t consistently reproduce the behavior but it is is persistent. FWIW it seems to be going a little better now, after installing 7.3.3.2, but not entirely gone.

#36

I just realized I posted as an answer, when I really meant to just add a comment. Sorry. I couldn’t find the reply button, and the answer button was so prominent…

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