Mail merge bug in LO 25.8

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#1

I use mail merge to print labels for my pill envelopes, 30 days at a time. Everything was working good until I updated to LO 25.8 from LO 7.6.6.

I have a Calc spreadsheet with three columns of 30 records each, Date1, Date2, and End date. I manually put a beginning date in Record 1 of column Date1. I populate the remainder of Date1 by adding one day to the preceding record. Date 2 is populated automatically starting with Record 2 of Date1. All records in End Date are populated with the date in the last record of Date2.

I have three Writer label documents, all 3 x 10. One of the documents uses all the Date1 records with one date field per label. The second document uses all the records from Date1 and End Date and so has two date fields in each label. The third document uses all the records of Date2 with one date field in each label. Labels are all printed using the Next Record field.

Everything has been working fine using LO up through Ver. 7.6.6. I decided to update to Ver 25.8 and had all sorts of issues with database registration. I finally got the registration issues resolved and thought everything was OK.

Here is the problem. With Ver 25.8 during the merge/print process two days are added to every record in all three columns. When I double click on any date field in the Writer document the dialog shows the correct date in every record.

All the dates are correct in the merged final document when I use Ver 7.6.6. I have uninstalled and reinstalled both versions several times. I use the exact same Calc and Writer documents for every test. This, in my observation, a significant bug in the mail merge routine in Ver 25.8.

How do I bring this to the attention of the developers? How, or where, do I upload my Calc and Writer documents so others can test them.

#2

How do I add to my question?

1 Like
#3

tdf#168252

Fixed in 25.8.2.1

3 Likes
#4

Thanks. Good to hear that is the case. I didn’t see that version listed on the download page as it is noted as pre-release at the bottom of the list. I stopped at the “latest stable version” and downloaded it!

#5

@mikekaganski any additional comment ?

#6

Oops, I misclicked, and don’t know how to unflag, sorry.

No comments, and why would you ping people randomly? Do you suspect the answer is incomplete?

#7

obviously not.


“dev” is still a big mystery for many/most readers here.
that could/would be interesting to have your take on the risk of side effects in touching the code.
(and the choice of backporting)
ok. maybe this would be sufficient : How could QA catch this in advance? – Mike Kaganski's blog


maybe, I could(/should) have asked @ilmari.

#8

There is always a risk when one touches the code.

These days, Xisco Faulí (TDF QA Engineer) decides that (mostly, and including that specific case). But backporting of bugfixes (1) is what constitutes bugfix releases, and (2) allows to detect bugs soon after introducing them, when it’s still fresh in memory - instead of spotting them after half a year or more, where you will have to spend quite some time just to understand what you yourself did there.

If you have some specific questions, it would be better to create a dedicated question on this QA site.

1 Like
#9

seems only @guilhem can do ?
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#10

for this very one, I understand(?) tdf#168252 is a partial revert of tdf#167591.
to what extend since it’s still FIXED ? and how to remember it " after half a year or more " ?

well, not sure I can formulate something specific;
it would go along the way of Updates have RUINED Libre

#11

Absolutely not. https://gerrit.libreoffice.org/c/core/+/190749 even touches files completely different from what was changed in original https://gerrit.libreoffice.org/c/core/+/188092 (and earlier https://gerrit.libreoffice.org/c/core/+/188091). It is a fix of the place that had a hardcoded value, that needed to be the same as the initially changed one.

If this is “how to remember to what extent it is reverted” - it is not. But if it were, then you can always compare the changes - everything is in the git history. It would be a work, but not impossible. However, if I misunderstood what how to remember it " after half a year or more " meant, please re-phrase it.

#12

thanks for the explanation.

(I guess the automatic gerrit raw notifications dropped in bugzilla are not especially easy to navigate)

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