Hi there
Ive posted this one on the Linux mint forum but it isn’t a specific Mint issue. (context is that I’m a newbie, incredibly impressed at how good the Linux has been so far. Ive had minor issues - two solved, but this one is a real pain.
Here goes… There are times when writer and calc will not start. clicking on the desktop icon generates no error but nothing happens.
If however, I right click it works perfectly. So on the surface this is a permissions issue
I can trace exactly what invokes this - it follows trying to open a file stored on my windows desktop over my wifi. It then will not let me view a local file.
If I then reboot, I can use libreOffice correctly as me without having to use as root, that is the permissioning is now correct.
as a complete noob, could someone tell me what command to run from terminal to check permissions and correct them?
But does anyone have an idea as to what is the root cause of the problem? what is changing Libre Office so that you have to be root to use it? and what I can do to fix as this drives me up the wall?
(Im on Mint 15, Mate 32bit,running on a partitiion on my lenovo X60 for what it is worth)
OK, it’s my guess that LO is having issues with ownership/permission of the files on your Windows partition.
Then stalling half way through loading the file … so it’s still running in the background so won’t open again.
Did that make sense ?
Try opening a file on you windows partition … then when it fails, run:
ps aux | grep [l]ibre
and see if there’s a libreoffice process running ?
if so you should be able to kill it with:
sudo killall oosplash
then you should be able to open LO properly again.
What is returned in the terminal if you run:
libreoffice --writer /path/to/file/on/windows/partition/filename.doc
?
Hi there - many thanks for super fast reply - I’m absolutely sure your analysis is correct.
So I ran the first command and got
wayne@linuxmint ~ $ ps aux | grep [l]ibre
wayne 3586 0.0 0.0 34344 2844 ? Sl 19:32 0:00 /usr/lib/libreoffice/program/oosplash --writer /run/user/wayne/gvfs/smb-share:server=master,share=r/Wayne/job apps/Business Case V3.doc
wayne 3629 0.0 0.0 16520 1968 ? Sl 19:32 0:00 /usr/lib/libreoffice/program/oosplash --writer /run/user/wayne/gvfs/smb-share:server=master,share=r/Wayne/companies editors/guildhall notes 23 oct.doc
wayne 3645 0.0 0.0 16520 1960 ? Sl 19:32 0:00 /usr/lib/libreoffice/program/oosplash --writer /run/user/wayne/gvfs/smb-share:server=master,share=r/Wayne/companies editors/guildhall notes 23 oct.doc
wayne 3660 0.0 0.0 16520 1960 ? Sl 19:32 0:00 /usr/lib/libreoffice/program/oosplash --writer /run/user/wayne/gvfs/smb-share:server=master,share=r/Wayne/job apps/cover.DOC
wayne 3711 0.0 0.0 16520 1964 ? Sl 19:33 0:00 /usr/lib/libreoffice/program/oosplash --writer /run/user/wayne/gvfs/smb-share:server=master,share=r/Wayne/job apps/cover.DOC
wayne 3726 0.0 0.0 16520 1964 ? Sl 19:33 0:00 /usr/lib/libreoffice/program/oosplash --calc
wayne 3743 0.0 0.0 16520 1964 ? Sl 19:33 0:00 /usr/lib/libreoffice/program/oosplash --calc
wayne 3758 0.0 0.0 16520 1964 ? Sl 19:33 0:00 /usr/lib/libreoffice/program/oosplash --writer
wayne 3865 0.0 0.0 16520 1960 ? Sl 19:36 0:00 /usr/lib/libreoffice/program/oosplash --writer
wayne 4092 0.0 0.0 16520 1964 ? Sl 19:49 0:00 /usr/lib/libreoffice/program/oosplash --writer /run/user/wayne/gvfs/smb-share:server=master,share=r/Wayne/ELAS/ELAS omn losses.doc
wayne 4208 0.0 0.0 16520 1964 ? Sl 19:52 0:00 /usr/lib/libreoffice/program/oosplash --writer /home/wayne/ringways/guildhall notes 23 oct.odt
wayne 4223 0.0 0.0 16520 1964 ? Sl 19:52 0:00 /usr/lib/libreoffice/program/oosplash --writer /home/wayne/ringways/guildhall notes 23 oct.odt
wayne 4292 0.0 0.0 16520 1964 ? Sl 19:54 0:00 /usr/lib/libreoffice/program/oosplash --calc /home/wayne/ringways/lewisham.xls
wayne 5756 0.0 0.0 16520 1964 ? Sl 21:35 0:00 /usr/lib/libreoffice/program/oosplash --writer /run/user/wayne/gvfs/smb-share:server=master,share=r/daisy ma/Costa-Gavras Final/Abstract.doc
where r is the drive on my windows box upstairs and you can see the files I cant open. When I try to kill the running process I get
wayne@linuxmint ~ $ sudo killall oosplash
[sudo] password for wayne:
wayne@linuxmint ~ $ sudo killall oosplash
oosplash: no process found
wayne@linuxmint ~ $
so it thinks oosplash is not running…
when i try to run
libreoffice --writer /path/to/file/on/windows/partition/filename.doc
nothing happens…
and I still cant open files on the windows box. (If I try as admin then I get the LO splash screen but still cant get any further. And I now cant open LO files on my Linux box, so something has changed the permissions I think…
Dunno why:
sudo killall oosplash
isn’t working … it should as the process is clearly running.
What’s the output from:
ls -al "/run/user/wayne/gvfs/smb-share:server=master,share=r/Wayne/job apps/Business Case V3.doc"
Can you also try this:
libreoffice --writer "/run/user/wayne/gvfs/smb-share:server=master,share=r/Wayne/job apps/Business Case V3.doc"
does that open the file in LO ?
Can you also try this …
Instead of browsing to the file on your Windows share in your file manager, then clicking the document to open … try Opening LO Writer, then click
File>Open
then browse to the
/run/user/wayne/gvfs/smb-share:server=master,share=r/Wayne/job apps/Business Case V3.doc
file from within Writer … does it open that way ?
–
thanks again Mark. I’ll have to try this tomorrow (the Mrs has gone to bed and so desktop is off). speak soon - wayne
OK 
this is truly weird…it works perfectly now…so like all the best bugs it’s intermittent…grrrr…the next time it occurs i’ll paste the results and i’ll try to identify what maybe a secondary causal factor…many thanks…
No problem … Intermittent problems are bitter/sweet … a pain to diagnose, but half the time not a problem at all :o
right then…!!!
I get from the command you suggested
wayne@linuxmint ~ $ ls -al “/run/user/wayne/gvfs/smb-share:server=master,share=r/Wayne/job apps/Business Case V3.doc”
-rwx------ 1 wayne wayne 166400 Oct 8 2011 /run/user/wayne/gvfs/smb-share:server=master,share=r/Wayne/job apps/Business Case V3.doc
but I cant browse from the Writer icon on my linux box because it is now locked up to me (as permissioning has transferred to root by the bug!
if I log in as admin I can browser
/run/user/wayne/ and see gvfs but clicking on that takes me to a blank screen
does that help?
Opening a file can’t change any permissions for a program.
Running the program from the command line with “sudo” might … as a graphical app it should really be started with “gksudo” if you want to start it with elevated privileges.
I’m beginning to think this may be due to the spaces in the path and filename … and the new way gvfs works.
What happens if you change
job apps → job_apps
and
Business Case V3.doc → Business_Case_V3.doc
just as a test.
Does this happens on all files you try to open from that remote location?
If so then try to mount that drive/partition before you try to access it from LibreOffice.
See if that makes any difference. If it does (and you use this location a lot)
then you can set it to mount at boot in fstab.
hi seso
yes it does…but as a clueless noob on linux (veteran of Windows from 95 onwards!) , could you explain how I can follow that approach?
Can you answer me a question … is the Windows box called “master” ?
If so … What happens of you run:
ping -c 5 master
?
Hi Mark - thanks for continuing interest in this one!!
There is some evidence that your suspicion about naming convention may be correct - files in the format file name do seem much more likely to cause the issue than ones called file_name. Am investigating and testing further
the results of the pin to Master (the windows box) are below…so I dont think this is a timeout/network issue
wayne@linuxmint ~ $ ping -c 5 master
PING master (192.168.0.6) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from master (192.168.0.6): icmp_req=1 ttl=128 time=1.17 ms
64 bytes from master (192.168.0.6): icmp_req=2 ttl=128 time=1.29 ms
64 bytes from master (192.168.0.6): icmp_req=3 ttl=128 time=1.28 ms
64 bytes from master (192.168.0.6): icmp_req=4 ttl=128 time=2.64 ms
64 bytes from master (192.168.0.6): icmp_req=5 ttl=128 time=1.28 ms
— master ping statistics —
5 packets transmitted, 5 received, 0% packet loss, time 4006ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 1.178/1.537/2.647/0.557 ms
spoke too soon - I can now reproduce it again clicking between files with no spaces in the name
I now can get packet loss
wayne@linuxmint ~ $ ping -c 5 master
PING master (192.168.0.6) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from master (192.168.0.6): icmp_req=1 ttl=128 time=1.32 ms
64 bytes from master (192.168.0.6): icmp_req=2 ttl=128 time=4.50 ms
64 bytes from master (192.168.0.6): icmp_req=3 ttl=128 time=1.42 ms
64 bytes from master (192.168.0.6): icmp_req=4 ttl=128 time=1.77 ms
— master ping statistics —
5 packets transmitted, 4 received, 20% packet loss, time 4006ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 1.325/2.258/4.502/1.306 ms
grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, ths is driving me up the wall…need to be edit files upstairs while sitting in an armchair downstairs!!! My plan is to move the upstair box off of windows next year, perhaps the issue may vanish then…
if I remember correctly the new way that gvfs mounts were handled in Mint15 were all screwed up.
Make sure you have smbclient installed
sudo apt-get install smbclient
Now what happens if you start up your file browser, then in the address bar enter
smb://master/r
and hit enter.
Are the “r” shares now visible ?
if so, do they work as expected ?
if so, you can either bookmark that address, or we can mount the share from fstab
hi mark
sorry for long reply.
samba client is correctly installed, and I can see the files and directories on R correctly. The libre office bug is still there though, unpredictably, but definitely there, that is, after it locks up (leaving a lock type file on the windows share BTW), I then cannot
- open files on the Linux box unless I log in as administrator
- open files on the windows share at all.
when I run the command however I get
wayne@linuxmint ~ $ smb://master/r
bash: smb://master/r: No such file or directory
Hi Waynea
wayne@linuxmint ~ $ smb://master/r bash: smb://master/r: No such file or directory
I don’t think running a location from the command prompt will work, you have to run it from the address bar in file manager
Browse to the Windows directory (so it’s mounted), then open a terminal and post the output from:
mount