Navigator jumping to wrong place in document

[johnmastell]

I am using LibreOffice v7.2.6.2 on a Windows 10 system. When using the Navigator Panel, double clicking on a line navigates to the wrong place in the document. This occurs intermittently. I have encountered it multiple times, but I have found no way to always reproduce it. This never happened to me until I upgraded to 7.2.6.2.

The problem occurs when trying to navigate to a nested heading in the Navigator. Instead of going to that heading, Writer navigates to the top level heading that would be in the position of the click if the Navigator was only showing top level headings.

(display of screenshot fixed by ajlittoz)

Examples: In the screenshot, Chapter 4 is open to display two lower levels of headings. When I double click on 4.C.3, Navigator sometimes takes me to Chapter 10 instead. Note that Chapter 10 would exactly be in the position where 4.C.3 is if there were no subheadings displayed. I suspect one of two things may be occurring: The Navigator Panel has not updated its display, so Chapter 4 should not be displaying lower level headings. In this case, I actually am double clicking on Chapter 10 but it just doesn't look like it. Alternatively, maybe the internal data representation for the Navigator has gotten out of sync.

No one else had reported this behavior, either here or in the bug database, as far as I can see. Has anyone else encountered it? Am I doing something wrong? If not, is there a way to avoid this behavior?

[ajlittoz]

Never experienced this before. However, to make sure: double-clicking on a heading in the Navigator has 2 effects. First expand/shrink the tree below the heading. Second jump to the position.
Do you experience the same “glitch” if you double-click on a “non-expandable” heading like 4.F?
Fool’s question: is your mouse button bouncing? This could result in a triple-click where the first double-click shrinks/expands and the last click associated with the middle-click jumps to the new destination.

[johnmastell]

“double-clicking on a heading in the Navigator has 2 effects. First expand/shrink the tree below the heading. Second jump to the position.” The second effect occurs. The first effect does not occur for me; the second does. If a tree is open above the heading I am double clicking, sometimes (not always) that tree closes. In the above illustration, double clicking on 6, 7, or 8 for example will eventually close the tree at four. The only way I can open a tree is clicking (once) on the + control.

Clicking on 4F will occasional cause the same problem.

The mouse button is not bouncing; the mouse is fine. I believe the problem is related to v7.2.6.2. I did not have it before updating to this version; I have had it intermittently once I did update (late March 2022).

[ajlittoz]

Effectively, I didn’t notice the change compared to older releases. I am with 7.2.6.2 under Fedora 35 (Linux) and double-click no longer shrinks/expands. But here, jumping to the heading is reliable. It may then be related to integration with W10 (?).

[keme1]

Could be a glitch in the rendering of the navigator pane.

See this thread discussing rendering issues, and the suggested solution from @kompilainenn .

[johnmastell]

The issue remains the same whether OpenCL is enabled or not (and, yes, I restarted LO as directed).

kompilainenn’s suggestion does not apply to me; I do not have an Nvidia card.

[EarnestAl]

@johnmastell I think that you misread the linked post, OpenCL is probably not relevant as it relates to calculations, not Graphics Output.
You might not have an nVidia card, but you do have a graphics card whether discrete or integrated. The previous graphics output was by OpenGL which has been replaced by Skia (except for some items, see linked page).
Open Graphics Output settings in Tools > Options > LibreOffice > View. Try setting Force Skia software rendering as in image below. If that doesn’t fiix the issue or it introduces other problems then try unticking Use Skia for all rendering

Link to Skia in Wiki page here First steps to take before submitting a bug - The Document Foundation Wiki

[johnmastell]

I did misunderstand the Skia aspect. I do have Force Skia software rendering set. I unticked Use Skia for all rendering, restarted, and still have the same issue. Just to try all options, I also reenabled Skia, restarted, unticked Force Skia software rendering, restarted, and still have the same issue.

Thank you for clearly explaining where to find the Skia settings. This saved me time!

[EarnestAl]

In that case it is probably not a graphics issue and you can set your graphics settings back to previous, unless you want try unticking hardware acceleration too

I have not seen this issue with sub levels of headings in Windows 11, LO 7.2.6.2 although my documents tend to be only 20 - 40 pages.

I am not sure that the following will help but it is one of the steps you should take before submitting a bug.
Test whether the problem occurs in LibreOffice safe mode, Help > Restart in Safe Mode > Continue in Safe Mode. If the problem is resolved in Safe Mode then you should look at resetting your user profile.
The User Profile page linked below has details, read it carefully because it affects spelling, AutoCorrect, templates, etc. I prefer the manual method and then copying back the relevant folders, except config & registry.
LibreOffice user profile - The Document Foundation Wiki.

[johnmastell]

The issue does not occur in Safe Mode, nor in normal mode with a new user profile. I have manually reset the user folder per you instructions, and the issue not longer occurs. Thank you! (And, yes, I will test the user profile in the future if problems arise before I post here.)

[johnmastell]

Alas, exactly seven days after I reset the user profile, the issue has started again during the day, exactly the same as before. I did nothing today that would have affected the profile this day.

[EarnestAl]

I’m not sure what I can suggest here. If resetting the user profile again fixes the problem for a while then it is an issue with user profile getting corrupted. But why and how is another problem. If it were occurring on my PC I suppose I would look at updating graphic card drivers or other software running at three same time.
You could try posting a bug report First steps to take before submitting a bug - The Document Foundation Wiki

[mikekaganski]

Also in such cases it might be useful to try to bisect which setting(s) create this effect. The problematic settings are probably in registrymodifications.xcu file under user profile; and you may try to remove its contents in halves until you find one or a couple of lines that are responsible for this. Then the resulting file would be a great supplement to the bug report, and a useful thing as a workaround.

[johnmastell]

It seems to be a problem with registrymodifications.xcu. In the user folder, there was also “registrymodifications - Copy.xcu” dated back to when I reset the user file. I backed up both xcu files and then switched “registrymodifications - Copy.xcu” to “registrymodifications.xcu”. The problem went away. The biggest changes between the two files were 1) the size of the Recent History list (one document vs. several) and 2) two customized keyboard shortcuts.

I will investigate this further when I have time.

I have pictures on the first pages of several of my documents. The Recent Documents screen that appears when I first run LO shows thumbnails of the first pages. I am wondering if the size of the thumbnails in the xcu might be causing the problem. In the xcu, I notice that path="/org.openoffice.Office.Histories/Histories/org.openoffice.Office.Histories:HistoryInfo[‘PickList’]/ItemList" … name=“Thumbnail” has values much longer for thumbnails with pictures than for those without.

[johnmastell]

This problem has not come back in over a year, possibly reverting the registrymodifications.xcu file fixed the issue.