Version 24 is haunted

NightriderXP1 · March 5, 2024, 4:47am

A very large project I created suddenly acts haunted after installing LO 24.2.1. Form controls begin replicating on the page whenever my mouse passes over. I thought I had been hacked at first, so I rebooted. The problem persisted. Next I ran a complete antivirus scan, which came out clean. Apparently the setting for auto saving is turned on my default too. Some of my docs take several minutes to save so it was pretty annoying losing access to all of my open workbooks each time it decided to auto save. I turned that off in settings. But the replicating form controls was too much. I uninstalled LO 24.2.1 and reinstalled LO 7.6.4. All is back to normal again. This isn’t kewl

I’m running on W10…

Hrbrgr · March 5, 2024, 6:12am

In which file format do you save?

Please upload a reduced and anonymized file here with this issue,
so that someone can examine it. Thanks.

NightriderXP1 · March 5, 2024, 7:05am

It’s using the standard ODS file format. What I created is a very large interconnected project with linked data between workbooks and spreadsheets. I’m not sure how well it will behave if I whittle it down since almost everything relies on everything else. If I can get a small piece of it to work standalone, how should I provide it here, zipped???

Hrbrgr · March 5, 2024, 7:10am

It would be useful, this website only allows a limited size (4MB max) for the upload.
If ZIP is not allowed, attach an additional Extend to the file with PDF.

NightriderXP1 · March 5, 2024, 6:37pm

Ok, I stripped the workbook down. W10 claims that it’s 2.9MB but this site says it’s still too big. So I uploaded it to my domain in both ZIP and raw ODS formats. Here are the links, whichever works best:

http://4fxearth.net/downloads/Stripped.zip
http://4fxearth.net/downloads/RDLE_Finder_Stripped.ods

The replicating form controls were on the Play5 tab. The listboxes and Reset buttons would replicate whenever I passed over with my mouse/cursor. The Form Control toolbar wasn’t open nor was it in Design Mode. This only happens in LO 24.2.1 but not in LO 7.6.4…

NightriderXP1 · March 7, 2024, 3:30am

Anyone? I would like to get this resolved or report it as a new bug if it can be confirmed…

Hrbrgr · March 7, 2024, 4:43am

I have opened your ODS file. It took quite a long time, about 30 seconds, to open the document. The first thing I noticed were two warning messages regarding links and macros.

As I do not work with macros, I did not enable them.
In this condition, there are no visual impairments.

First of all, I suspect a time problem. Only test your procedure after a reasonable waiting time to see if the effect is still there.

I personally cannot help you in this matter, sorry.
But there are many other users here who are very familiar with Calc and macros and will certainly be able to help you. Good luck!

NightriderXP1 · March 7, 2024, 6:14am

Thanks for looking. There’s a lot going on even in this stripped down version that I provided above. It does take a long time to load. I wondered how it would work on other computers since I’m the only one to have used it afaik. I suspect it will run better on my server when I get it up and running again…

I used LO to record the macros that are tied to the Reset buttons. LO generated all of the macro code. Other than being an executable in the button controls, they do nothing to create form controls. The unwanted replicating form controls I’m reporting is new in LO 24.2.1. It doesn’t happen in LO 7.6.4…

I can’t read the notifications in your screenshot. German???

Hrbrgr · March 7, 2024, 6:20am

Yes.

Security warning Automatic updating of external links is deactivated.
Macros disabled Macros are disabled in this document due to the macro security settings.

With me:

Version: 24.2.1.2 (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: db4def46b0453cc22e2d0305797cf981b68ef5ac
CPU threads: 8; OS: Windows 10.0 Build 19045; UI render: Skia/Raster; VCL: win
Locale: de-DE (de_DE); UI: de-DE
Calc: CL threaded

NightriderXP1 · March 7, 2024, 6:26am

Oops. I overlooked the External Links. I should have copied and pasted the raw data into the Import tab so that LO wouldn’t try to update data from a data file that I didn’t provide. That’s the reason for the first notification. It should have been able to work the same even though it didn’t have the data file to import from…

As far as macros, they’re all generated by LO. They basically recorded my keystrokes to sort or empty cells. There’s nothing in the LO generated macros that would/could have caused the replicating listboxes and reset buttons whenever my cursor passed over the form controls. The problem starts after I install LO 24.2.1 but goes away when I uninstall and reinstall LO 7.6.4. This is definitely a new bug introduced in LO 24.2.1…

NightriderXP1 · March 7, 2024, 6:30am

I’m guessing some of the time delay for loading was LO attempting to import data from the missing data file. Would you be willing to look at it again if I hardcoded the data in the Import tab so that it wouldn’t have to try to import the external data???

NightriderXP1 · March 7, 2024, 7:06am

Ok, I stripped the External data links and hardcoded the data in the Import tab. It should load a bit faster now that it’s not attempting to access data from a missing external data file…

http://4fxearth.net/downloads/Stripped.zip
http://4fxearth.net/downloads/RDLE_Finder_Stripped.ods

The replicating form controls were on the Play5 tab. The listboxes and Reset buttons would replicate whenever I passed over with my mouse/cursor. The Form Control toolbar wasn’t open nor was it in Design Mode. This only happens in LO 24.2.1 but not in LO 7.6.4…

Hrbrgr · March 7, 2024, 8:47am

I have opened the ODS again. The file still needs about 30 seconds until the table is visible. The message is still displayed:

“Macros disabled Macros are disabled in this document due to the macro security settings.”
When I move the mouse over the table, no visual changes are visible.

Try the points in the link that might be relevant for Calc:

First steps to take before submitting a bug

mahengrui1 · March 7, 2024, 12:42pm

I have not read the posts but max size is definitely less than 4MB

Hrbrgr · March 7, 2024, 1:44pm

@mahengrui1
This is the message from system:

However, the value may be lower for newcomers.

NightriderXP1 · March 7, 2024, 9:30pm

Right. I hardcoded external data into the Stripped version, eliminating the notification about deactivated automatic updating of external links. I didn’t remove any LO created macros though since they clearly didn’t contribute to the problem…

I reinstalled LO 24.2.1 and recreated the same environment that went south the other night. So far, I haven’t been able to recreate the problem. I’m still testing and playing around to see if the problem resurfaces. I lost a couple of hours the other night trying to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it. If it resurfaces again, I’ll know immediately what I need to do to get everything back to normal. For now, it looks like what happened the other night was an aberration since I’m not able so far to replicate it…

Thanks for looking into this. I don’t know if the problem can be marked solved since nothing has really changed. The bug just isn’t appearing right now, so hopefully, it won’t return at another inconvenient moment. I like to have answers when weird things happen. I don’t have an answer why LO seemed haunted the other night after installing LO 24.2.1. The ghost appears to be gone…