Welcome to NeoOffice developer notes and announcements
NeoOffice
Developer notes and announcements
 
 

This website is an archive and is no longer active
NeoOffice announcements have moved to the NeoOffice News website


Support
· Forums
· NeoOffice Support
· NeoWiki


Announcements
· Twitter @NeoOffice


Downloads
· Download NeoOffice


  
NeoOffice :: View topic - Images are lost after saving
Images are lost after saving
 
   NeoOffice Forum Index -> NeoOffice Testing
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
pluby
The Architect
The Architect


Joined: Jun 16, 2003
Posts: 11949

PostPosted: Sun Aug 15, 2010 12:56 pm    Post subject: Images are lost after saving

In the last few months, I have seen more than one topic in our forums reporting that images are lost after saving and reopening their Writer or Impress documents. After investigating these reports recently, I have found that this same problem has been reported to occur in many versions of NeoOffice's underlying OpenOffice.org code so there appears to be a very serious bug in OpenOffice.org's document saving code.

While this is an OpenOffice.org bug, we consider data loss bugs like this bug to be critical bugs and so I have created this post and bug 3631 to consolidate discussion of this bug in one place.

Until a couple of days ago, we were not able to reproduce this problem. However, there has been some breakthroughs in the last couple of days and I can now reproduce this bug in the following cases:

1. Writer documents - Images will be lost in some cases where AutoRecovery is turned on, an autorecovery save occurs, and then the document is manually saved after the autorecovery save has finished. Steps for reproducing this bug are in OpenOffice.org's issue 108035 and even though it is listed as an OpenOffic.org bug, the bug actually appears to be caused by a bug in Novell's Go-oo code modifications that we include in NeoOffice.

2. Impress documents - Images will be lost when Mac OS X deletes NeoOffice's or OpenOffice.org's temporary files folder. Mac OS X periodically deletes files in certain folders if they are more than a couple days old. If you keep an Impress document open for more than a day and Mac OS X deletes the NeoOffice's temporary files while the document is open, in many cases when you save the document the images will be lost. This appears to be the same Mac OS X problem that causes OpenOffice.org issue 69993.

I have fixes for both of the above cases and I will post a test patch for everyone to try later today. If anyone can help test any test patches that I post, that would be greatly appreciated.

Patrick
Back to top
ovvldc
Captain Naiobi


Joined: Sep 13, 2004
Posts: 2352
Location: Zürich, CH

PostPosted: Sun Aug 15, 2010 1:23 pm    Post subject:

Congratulations, well done. I will be happy to try out a patch, though probably not to tempt data loss with any important document Wink.

Best wishes,
Oscar

_________________
"What do you think of Western Civilization?"
"I think it would be a good idea!"
- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
Back to top
pluby
The Architect
The Architect


Joined: Jun 16, 2003
Posts: 11949

PostPosted: Sun Aug 15, 2010 9:07 pm    Post subject:

I think I have fixed the two cases described in my previous post that were causing images in some Writer and Impress documents to be lost when the document is saved and reopened.

Can anyone who has been experiencing lost images in their documents install the following test patch and see if the bug is fixed for you? Please note that the bug is mostly likely to occur after your document has had an automatic autorecovery save occur or after you have had your document open for more than a day:

Intel:
http://joe.neooffice.org/test/NeoOffice-3.1.1-Patch-2-Test-5-Intel.dmg

PowerPC:
http://joe.neooffice.org/test/NeoOffice-3.1.1-Patch-2-Test-5-PowerPC.dmg

Patrick
Back to top
pluby
The Architect
The Architect


Joined: Jun 16, 2003
Posts: 11949

PostPosted: Mon Aug 16, 2010 12:02 pm    Post subject:

FYI. I have a new test patch.

After posting the test patch yesterday, I realized that now that NeoOffice's temporary files are in a subfolder within the user's preferences folder, Time Machine will backup those temporary files. Since temporary files are created and deleted quite frequently when using NeoOffice, these files should be excluded from Time Machine backups so in the following test patch I have added the necessary code to have Time Machine skip the new temporary folder when doing backups:

Intel:
http://joe.neooffice.org/test/NeoOffice-3.1.1-Patch-2-Test-6-Intel.dmg

PowerPC:
http://joe.neooffice.org/test/NeoOffice-3.1.1-Patch-2-Test-6-PowerPC.dmg

Patrick
Back to top
pluby
The Architect
The Architect


Joined: Jun 16, 2003
Posts: 11949

PostPosted: Thu Aug 19, 2010 1:50 pm    Post subject:

I have some good news: one of the positive side effects of my changes to fix the "lost images when saving" bugs is that if a user is using FileVault to encrypt all files in their Home folder, any temporary files that NeoOffice creates are now also automatically encrypted.

NeoOffice has this new security improvement because the location of NeoOffice's temporary files has been moved into the user's Home folder so when FileVault is enabled, it will see any temporary files created by NeoOffice.

I have uploaded the following test patch. While it has no significant changes in behavior from the last test patch, I added some code to handle the rare case where a user cannot write to their own ~/Library/Caches directory.

That should not happen but you can never be to careful so if that case happens, we write to the user's dedicated temporary folder. That folder is not seen by FileVault so it won't be encrypted, but at least the user's dedicated temporary folder has resticted read and write permissions and it should not t get deleted by Mac OS X while the user is logged like the /tmp folder does:

Intel:
http://joe.neooffice.org/test/NeoOffice-3.1.1-Patch-2-Test-7-Intel.dmg

PowerPC:
http://joe.neooffice.org/test/NeoOffice-3.1.1-Patch-2-Test-7-PowerPC.dmg

Patrick
Back to top
pluby
The Architect
The Architect


Joined: Jun 16, 2003
Posts: 11949

PostPosted: Sun Aug 22, 2010 2:00 pm    Post subject:

FYI. I have uploaded following test patch. This test patch is the same as the previous test patch except for one small change: in the rare case where the user's ~/Library/Caches folders has not yet been created, NeoOffice will create it with very restrictive permissions so that NeoOffice's temporary files will be encrypted when FileVault is enabled:

Intel:
http://joe.neooffice.org/test/NeoOffice-3.1.1-Patch-2-Test-8-Intel.dmg

PowerPC:
http://joe.neooffice.org/test/NeoOffice-3.1.1-Patch-2-Test-8-PowerPC.dmg

Patrick
Back to top
pluby
The Architect
The Architect


Joined: Jun 16, 2003
Posts: 11949

PostPosted: Tue Sep 07, 2010 10:25 am    Post subject:

FYI. The fix for these bugs have been included in NeoOffice 3.1.2 which can download it from the NeoOffice download page.

Patrick
Back to top
jdp
Agent


Joined: Jul 23, 2010
Posts: 15

PostPosted: Mon Sep 20, 2010 8:30 am    Post subject:

Hi - I don't know if this is the same sort of problem as discussed in this thread, but I've been having a problem with diagrams disappearing (turning into "Read Error" - a blank outline box with Read Error at the top left) items.

Not only do existing pics in a document sometimes disappear, but sometimes when I try to paste in a new pic I get the "Read Error".

I've been able to get around this by quitting NeoOffice and starting it again... but after running for a while the problem appears to start up again.

I'm attaching two files - I copied a pic and pasted it into the first which showed (when it was created) the blank picture box with the heading at the top left "Read Error", but which (I now see) appears completely blank. The other is the pic in question after I restarted NeoOffice and then pasted the pic into a new document - at the moment it looks ok to me.

Tnx, cheers, Josh
Back to top
pluby
The Architect
The Architect


Joined: Jun 16, 2003
Posts: 11949

PostPosted: Mon Sep 20, 2010 9:36 am    Post subject:

jdp wrote:
I've been able to get around this by quitting NeoOffice and starting it again... but after running for a while the problem appears to start up again.


Although I am not sure that what you are seeing is the same bug that I fixed in NeoOffice 3.1.2, the fact that it does not occur until NeoOffice has been running a while seems to indicate that what you are seeing has a similar cause as the bug that I fixed.

Do you see a pattern in how long NeoOffice has to be running before you see this issue? In the bug that I fixed, you had to have a document open for at least a day (and maybe at least 2 days) to see the bug.

If you are seeing the problem after having a document only a few hours, then my theory is that NeoOffice is not releasing images from its limited pool of Java memory. To test this theory, can you launch the /Applications/Utilities/Console application and when this problem occurs again, copy any new messages that appear in the Console window into a reply post?

Patrick
Back to top
jdp
Agent


Joined: Jul 23, 2010
Posts: 15

PostPosted: Mon Sep 20, 2010 9:57 am    Post subject:

Hi Patrick - I can load up a document and copy pics into it and then at some point it stops "accepting" pics and gives the read error problem. This happened a couple of times this morning already, perhaps within 10-15 minutes (?) of opening the document.

Here is a copy of the console log. I hope this is what you wanted me to send. I couldn't spot anything relevant myself, but I'm not familiar with the log...

Tnx, cheers, Josh
Back to top
pluby
The Architect
The Architect


Joined: Jun 16, 2003
Posts: 11949

PostPosted: Mon Sep 20, 2010 10:04 am    Post subject:

While I don't see any errors in the log, I did see the following lines which indicate that you are not using the latest version of NeoOffice:

Quote:
10-09-20 12:38:29 PM soffice.bin[39404] Application will become active - Using remote controls
10-09-20 12:38:35 PM soffice.bin[39404] Application will resign active - Releasing remote controls
10-09-20 12:38:35 PM soffice.bin[39404] Application will become active - Using remote controls


My fix for the lost images bug was first included in NeoOffice 3.1.2 so can you verify that you are using NeoOffice 3.1.2 Patch 0? To check if that is the version and patch that you are using, select the Help :: About NeoOffice and the version and patch will be listed at the bottom of the dialog that appears.

Patrick
Back to top
jdp
Agent


Joined: Jul 23, 2010
Posts: 15

PostPosted: Tue Sep 21, 2010 4:55 am    Post subject:

Tnx Patrick - thought I was up to date. Pics seem stable now. Was losing them regularly in one doc, but not since I updated yesterday PM. Cheers, Josh
Back to top
pluby
The Architect
The Architect


Joined: Jun 16, 2003
Posts: 11949

PostPosted: Tue Sep 21, 2010 6:58 am    Post subject:

jdp wrote:
Tnx Patrick - thought I was up to date. Pics seem stable now. Was losing them regularly in one doc, but not since I updated yesterday PM. Cheers, Josh


That is good news. I was worried that I had found another image losing bug in NeoOffice's underlying OpenOffice.org code. If the problem reoccurs in the future with NeoOffice 3.1.2, please let us know and we will definitely investigate further.

Patrick
Back to top
Display posts from previous:   
   NeoOffice Forum Index -> NeoOffice Testing All times are GMT - 7 Hours
Page 1 of 1

 
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
You cannot attach files in this forum
You cannot download files in this forum

Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group

All logos and trademarks in this site are property of their respective owner. The comments are property of their posters, all the rest © Planamesa Inc.
NeoOffice is a registered trademark of Planamesa Inc. and may not be used without permission.
PHP-Nuke Copyright © 2005 by Francisco Burzi. This is free software, and you may redistribute it under the GPL. PHP-Nuke comes with absolutely no warranty, for details, see the license.