Manual update of external links in LibreCalc recently has stopped working

English
#1

Hi, I think a new bug has recently entered the source code of Libreoffice Calc.

Several hours ago, I hadn’t used Libreoffice Calc for a while, but an acquaintance of mine had been using it monthly. She told me that the manual updating function wouldn’t work. (Edit - Links to External Files…)
I tried to do it on my linux system, and it didn’t work on my system either.

It turned out that if you don’t allow automatic updating in the ‘Security Warning’ bar that pops up when you open an .ods file, you can’t do any updates to external links, including manual updates. (Or perhaps you might be able to update external links by configuring Libreoffice to automatically update external links whenever a spreadsheet is opened, and/or trust the files from a specific path, I guess :grey_question:)

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So I did an automatic update to every single external link in the big spreadsheet file by clicking Allow updating on the ‘Security Warning’ bar, to force Calc to populate the cells with new external links she had added to the spreadsheet. This took much more time to complete than manually updating a single column of new external links.

I believe the user should be able to opt in for the stability and quickness of manually updating fewer selected external links. Should I file a bug report somewhere? Please let me know what to do.

Best Regards.

Libreoffice Calc version:

Version: 26.2.5.2 (X86_64)
Build ID: 620(Build:2)
CPU threads: 8; OS: Linux 7.0; UI render: default; VCL: gtk3
Locale: en-US (en_US.UTF-8); UI: en-US
Ubuntu package version: 4:26.2.5.2-0ubuntu0.26.04.1
Calc: threaded

By the way, I told her how I forced Calc to load the new external links, but Calc just complained that the source file of the DDE is not currently open when she tried clicking Allow updating on the Windows version of LibreCalc,
However, she told me she had the source spreadsheet files open in another window. So I guess there might be another bug in the communication between instances of Libre Calc, but I’m not sure because she’s very illiterate with computers.

#2

Works for me unless I move or rename the source.

#3

Good to hear! Could you tell me the version number of Calc?

#4

I suspect that it is a setting in your installation. If you click Tools > Options > LibreOffice > Security > Options is Block any links from documents not among trusted locations (see Macro Security) ticked?
If so either untick it or make sure that your trusted locations (Macro Security button in Security page) are set to where you want.

#5

Thank you for the idea, but that option was disabled.
I just checked what happens when that option is enabled; Calc won’t even show you the ‘Security Warning’ bar when a file is opened when the aforementioned option is enabled.

#6

Cf. tdf#169273 - “Manual update of linked content does not work”.

#7

Using 26.8, I extracted your files to /tmp/test/DDE Test/ on my Linux PC.

  • Replaced the space in the path with an underscore: /tmp/test/DDE_Test/
  • Opened the target file.
  • replaced the path in R1:R4
  • selected /tmp/test/DDE_Test/CE_dbProdotti_TEST01.ods in validated N5
  • deleted all links in the links dialog,
  • saved, reloaded the file
  • enabled updating external link.
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#8

What do you mean, ‘your files’?

How did you enable updating external link?

#9

Oh, apparently someone has already reported the bug last year.

I guess I got this buggy Calc (26.2.) when I upgraded Ubuntu from 24.04 to 26.04, and the acquaintance I mentioned has recently downloaded Libreoffice Calc again and reinstalled Calc in order to get rid of a bug. I’ll ask her what version of Libreoffice Calc she has.

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