NeoOffice crashes on opening docx document

James3359

NeoOffice has been beginning to launch, partially drawing document and toolbar windows then crashing without warning when opening a docx document. I attach a crash log. I can attach the original document as well. It contains some personal information, but nothing private.

NO 3.3 Patch 5 OSX 10.8.2

Regards

James

pluby · The Architect Joined: Jun 16, 2003 Posts: 11949

I might need the original document but first can you install the following debug patch and try opening your document? It will still crash, but the debug patch will post messages in the /Applications/Utilities/Console application whenever the function that your crash log indicates is where the crash occurs in.

If you can post any messages in the Console application window, I can determine if the crash will likely be fixable by backporting some OpenOffice and/or LibreOffice code:

Intel:
http://juliette.neooffice.org/test/NeoOffice-3.3-Patch-5-Debug-1-Intel.dmg

Patrick

James3359 · Posted: Mon Mar 11, 2013 9:17 am Post subject:

Thank you for your prompt response, Patrick.
Console: System Log Queries: All Messages reports:

pluby · The Architect Joined: Jun 16, 2003 Posts: 11949

Looks like the messages are not getting sent to the Console application so can you quit NeoOffice and launch it from the /Applications/Utilities/Terminal application pasting the following command into a Terminal window and pressing the Return key?:

pluby · The Architect Joined: Jun 16, 2003 Posts: 11949

I forgot to add that if you see no messages starting with "GetPropName:" when launching NeoOffice in a Terminal window, then would you be able to attach the .docx file?

Patrick

James3359 · Posted: Mon Mar 11, 2013 2:36 pm Post subject:

OK. My mistake earlier. I sent you a User Diagnostic Report, not a crash log. I've followed the procedure you described (launching from Terminal). NO crashed again. Still no crash log. There is a soffice.bin.crash.log listed in the Crash Reporter files, but it dates from May last year, and NO 3.1.2 and my previous laptop!

I attach both the User Diagnostic Report from the time of the latest crash, and the docx file that is causing the trouble.

Regards

James

pluby · The Architect Joined: Jun 16, 2003 Posts: 11949

pluby · The Architect Joined: Jun 16, 2003 Posts: 11949

I have fixed the crashing bug that occurs when opening your .docx file in the following test patch:

I found that the watermark and shape around the logo in the document triggered the crash. NeoOffice's underlying OpenOffice.org code cannot handle those artwork objects and so when the first artwork object fails to be imported, a cascade of corrupted memory within the Writer code occurs.

In other words, the OpenOffice.org .docx artwork object import code is extremely fragile and, IMO, very unstable. Due to our limited engineering resources (that is, only me), reimplementing OpenOffice.org's artwork object import code so that it is stable and handles watermarks correctly is not feasible (it look 2 full days of work just to find where the code that triggers the crash). So, to fix this bug, I disabled import of artwork objects.

Can you install the test patch and tell us if the crashing bug is fixed for you?:

Intel:
http://juliette.neooffice.org/test/NeoOffice-3.3-Patch-5-Test-1-Intel.dmg

Patrick

pluby · The Architect Joined: Jun 16, 2003 Posts: 11949

I found a way to fix this crashing bug without having to disable artwork objects. I think this is a much better fix than the fix in the test that I posted earlier today.

Can you install the test patch and tell us if the crashing bug is fixed for you?:

Intel:
http://juliette.neooffice.org/test/NeoOffice-3.3-Patch-5-Test-2-Intel.dmg

Patrick

James3359 · Posted: Thu Mar 14, 2013 4:07 am Post subject:

Patrick,

Thanks for this. The document now opens without crashing NO. Some of the artwork comes through as well, which is a bonus.

Of the resources *I* have available, both Preview and TextEdit struggle with the graphic content of this document, and NO's output is at least as good as theirs. Pages appears to make the best job of it (see attachment - purely for information - which is a PDF print from Pages), and I guess that is because it is a fundamentally newer product, and OOo has not been so quick in catching up with this.

Thank you again for eliminating the crash, and producing a good workable result.

James

pluby · The Architect Joined: Jun 16, 2003 Posts: 11949

Your output from Pages matches what I see in Microsoft Word 2008. Your experience strengthens my feeling that if you need really accurate rendering of .docx files and Microsoft Office is too expensive, Apple's Pages product is the next best alternative. Granted, Pages costs roughly US$20, but if you need to deal with complex .docx files frequently, that price may be worth it for many people.

While we cannot promise that NeoOffice will render .docx files as good as Word or Pages, what we can promise is that we will fix any reproducible crashes that our users report to us when opening .docx files. Stability is our primary concern so while fixing the crash that you reported, yesterday's test patch includes fixes for the following other .docx crashing bugs that I backported from recent versions of OpenOffice and LibreOffice:

- OpenOffice bug 112516
- LibreOffice bug 42450

Patrick

pluby · The Architect Joined: Jun 16, 2003 Posts: 11949

FYI. I have included fixes for various crash when opening .docx bugs in NeoOffice 3.3 Patch 6. The patch can be downloaded from the NeoOffice patch download page.

Patrick