Writer crashed after opening file

English
#1

Lots of problems. For starters, I tried to post this yesterday, but I can’t find it today.

Be that as it may, Writer 26.2.0.3 in Windows 11. Writer loaded fine, but when I opened my current document (.docx), I got a warning above the 'working area (the pages) which says “Missing hyphenation data Please install the hyphenation package for locale “en-us””. It also has a “Learn more” link, which tells me to run Linux command to install the thing. No go, but hitting the “learn more” link makes the Warning disappear. So apparently I can continue working as if nothing happened. But, I’m worried that today’s work will be lost.

I also noticed that the “look for updates” link (the little globe icon with the blue down arrow in the upper right corner of Writer). The first couple of times that the hyphenation warning appeared, it flashed on and off and running the mouse across it showed a message that “Updates for extension available Click the icon for more information”. That seemed promising, so I clicked it, but doing so closed Writer altogether.

Nevertheless, at other times (while the hyphenation warning is not on the screen, the globe icon seems to be a “Look for updates” link, but it then leaves an error message:

Checking for an update failed.

Error reading data from the Internet.
Server error message:
GET
=>
HTTP/1.1 403 Forbidden.

Also, Writer pops up a message that says it will send a crash report. I hit “Send crash report” at least three times by now, so I hope it went, but I can’t tell. There is also a Document Recovery popup, which doesn’t seem to do anything except make the hyphenation warning reappear.

I almost forgot, I also tried to initiate a bug report, which took me to Bugzilla, but Bugzilla wouldn’t acknowledge me saying that my email address that I have used for several decades didn’t have either a @ or a dot after the @.

I’m pretty sure that all of this is not SOP. What’s to be done? Should I merely uninstall and reinstall all of LO?

I have also just noticed that my document has lost all the spell-check indications. No squiggly red underlines.

#2

Test in Safe mode, click Help > Restart in safe mode > Continue in Safe Mode.
For 26.2.0 & 26.2.1, click Tools > Options > LibreOffice > View and ensure that the box Force Skia software rendering is enabled

Try opening the offending document. Does the Document open OK? Does hyphenation work? If it does then it could be a user profile problem. If it doesn’t then it could be an installation problem, or the .docx could be corrupted by multiple conversions to .odt and back to .docx every time the document is saved.

Always save in native format, .odt, if somebody else requires a .docx click File > Save a Copy as .docx and send them that but continue working on the .odt.

1 Like
#3

Thanks. I would never have worked this procedure out for myself.
After setting all the things you suggested, the file opens fine, but the hyphenation warning is still there, and there seem to be no hyphenations, as forced by justification, in the document at all, except those I set.

The document was .docx from inception, and I did convert it once, the first time that I edited with Writer, but have since used the original Word document and kept it in .docx format. So I don’t think its a matter of switching back and forth, but I can’t say, of course.

I have just opened the .odt copy to see differences, and while the hyphenation warning is absent, there don’t seem to be any hyphenations in this copy either.

I have just opened the Word copy, in Word. Lots of hyphenations.

You mentioned a 26.2.1 version. I thought my 26.2.0 was the latest, so I guess not. So what do you suggest, reinstall with 26.2.1? I still get the checking-for-updates fail.

One last question. I had just downloaded the 26.2.0 help pack. Could the problem be there? Should I simply uninstall the help pack?
I just tried that, restarted the computer, and no dice. Hyphenation warning persists. But I also looked at your download page 26.2.0 is the latest listed. Will a clean reinstall work?
I just tried it. The hyphenation warning is still there.
I’m at a loss.

#4

Every time you open a docx file it is converted to .odt for display, when you save the document, it is converted to .docx to write the file. There are many differences between .docx and .odt, not everything can be converted so it is dropped, this constant pruning can eventually affect something important.

If you create a new document with some justified dummy text (type DT and press F3) and turn on hyphenation, does LibreOffice complain?

So make sure that the box Force Skia software rendering is enabled when you first start LibreOffice in Normal mode. Once it is set it will stay set.

I would not use such an early version xx.x.0.x of LibreOffice for proper work. For Windows, I would wait until 26.2.2.x when opening in Safe Mode will really open in Safe Mode.
.
I have occasionally had to go back to an earlier version after finding a bug that interfered with my workflow. Simply uninstall the current version, then install the other release, 25.8.5

#5

I just tried the DT F3 thing, and got what appears to be a paragraph from a novel, it starts:

He heard quiet steps behind him. That didn’t bode well. …

Is that what’s supposed to happen?

I guess I could try 25.whatever it is. Thanks

Incidentally, I will soon be trashing Windows altogether and I notice that there are two Linux versions listed in the download page. A (deb) version and another. Can I assume that I want the deb version, since I will be using LinuxMint?

#6

Yup. It is text for testing. Did you try justifying the text and applying hyphenation to it? You might have to make the page two columns to make the text break. The question is does hyphenation work in the new document?

Linux Mint has LibreOffice in its software repository but it is modified. I found some instructions online to add LibreOffice as a repository for Linux Mint.

#7

I’m back in 25.8 now, and still no hyphenations. Just set a page to two columns. No hyphenations.

I suppose I am simply doomed to wander through life bereft of hyphens. Or is the Insert/Formatting Mark/Non-Breaking Hyphen the road to paradise?

No. I didn’t think so. I did find some references to hyphenation in the right sidebar, under ‘Properties’, but it doesn’t seem to do anything. What activates it?

The LibreOffice Help has some instructions on how to set it automatically. But that doesn’t seem to do much either. Will it work now in any new paragraph? Or only if I set it before I start a document? Why did it work before and then stop? Should I go back to 26.2, and play with those Styles?

Oh, well. The basics seem to be okay. Maybe I should just shut up and work.

#8

I haven’t come across an issue of missing hyphenation before.
Click Tools > Options > Languages and Locales > Writing Aids, is Libhyphen Hyphenator ticked? Listed?

#9

I do seem to have this gift for finding strangeness, for instance the Bugzilla thing with my email that I mentioned before.

Yes, Libhyphen Hyphenator is ticked, including everything in the Available Language Modules, the User defined Dictionaries, and a much of the Options, except “Hyphenate without inquiry”.

Oops. I just ticked the “…inquiry”, then opened my .odt file copy, and I got the same hyphenation warning as before. But no new hyphens. Just to be sure I checked the version, and it is still 25.8. At least the “Looking for updates” doesn’t give me a fail. I guess that’s something. Restarted in safe mode, and it opened without incident, but also without the sidebars that I use. And, I noticed, some of the spell-check edits I made yesterday are underlined again. But I did notice a hyphenation in my TOC and one or two in the early text.

Is that the answer? Always use safe-mode?

I just closed and reopened, setting safe mode from “Help” before I opened the file, and the same; edits go poof, no sidebars and it starts in whole screen (maximized) mode, telling me that this is the first time I have ever used Writer. I don’t think I’m going to like this.

I’m trying something else. Since I have v26.2.0.3 installed on the laptop on which I am testing Mint, I have opened my saved .docx file, saved it as .odt and am proceeding to edit from there. So far so good, though, once again, previously saved edits had to be edited again.

I also noticed that in “Tools/Language/…” “For selection” lists English as the ticked option, but not under “For paragraph” or “For All Text”. That English tick is good, but it also lists French. I suppose that is a default, though I never asked for it. But below that, it lists “Hyphenation…” and “Chinese conversion” and “Hangui/Hanja conversion”. If you are popular in China, congratulations to you, but it seems odd. Though the Hyphenation item seems appropriate to my problem. I have not clicked on it because I am pretty leery of it at this point. Nevertheless, I have installed the Oxford dictionary from under “More Dictionaries online” let’s hope that solves some of the weird spell-check options that I have gotten.

Well. Maybe not. Here are the possibilities that the spell checker gives for “Pre-pubescent”: per-pubescent, ore-pubescent, pee-pubescent, pr-pubescent, pres-pubescent, pare-pubescent, and about a dozen more.

Since it is already compromised, I decided to try the “Hyphenation” item on my Windows v25.8 setup, using a new, blank document. I got a popup that said “Hyphenation complete” and the upper-right globe icon reappeared, indicating “Updates for extensions available, Click the icon for more information”. This time, instead of simply closing Writer, it checked for extensions, and found the Oxford dictionary, as well as one other that I had thought I installed from the online dictionaries, so, with some trepidation, I tried it on my Mint Laptop.

For some reason it picked ‘fiction’ as a possible candidate (I don’t have that word anywhere on the page I had on the screen at the time) and suggested that I hyphenate it as fic-tion. Curiouser and curiouser.

#10

Use the LO packages as a last resort. There many many Linux distributions and the distro architects have their own ideas about general OS configuration (Linux is so versatile that fundamental choices must be made). This, in turn, implies modifications on raw upstream software (such as where to save application libraries and configuration).

Consequently, prefer to install the package(s) from you distro repository. Indeed, they will lag a bit compared to TDF LO official site but generally they are correctly integrated and show a pretty good stability (at least because distros provide “production-quality” versions, skipping “early-adopters” releases like xx.x.0/1.x).

If you go for a parallel installation with TDF LO packages, the format (.deb, .rpm, …) depends on the package manager (there are several). Distros based on Debian (Ubuntu, Mint, …) use .deb. But it is safer and simpler to install distro packages.

#11

Okay. That makes sense, though I don’t know what TDF stands for. I have even looked it up in an acronym web site, and none of the options seem to fit.

ajlittoz
February 20

GrumpyGeezer925:

that there are two Linux versions listed in the download page. A (deb) version and another. Can I assume that I want the deb version, since I will be using LinuxMint?

Use the LO packages as a last resort. There many many Linux distributions and the distro architects have their own ideas about general OS configuration (Linux is so versatile that fundamental choices must be made). This, in turn, implies modifications on raw upstream software (such as where to save application libraries and configuration).

Consequently, prefer to install the package(s) from you distro repository. Indeed, they will lag a bit compared to TDF LO official site but generally they are correctly integrated and show a pretty good stability (at least because distros provide “production-quality” versions, skipping “early-adopters” releases like xx.x.0/1.x).

If you go for a parallel installation with TDF LO packages, the format (.deb, .rpm, …) depends on the package manager (there are several). Distros based on Debian (Ubuntu, Mint, …) use .deb. But it is safer and simpler to install distro packages.

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#12

TDF = The Document Foundation = the official organisation which oversees LO

#13

I should have known.

#14

The crash from “updates for extensions available” icon is tdf#170805.

(And LibreOffice crash on startup is just a duplicate post of yours :slight_smile: )

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