Posted: Wed Dec 07, 2005 2:42 pm Post subject: neooffice won't start
Hi,
I downloaded and installed neoofice and patches, then doubleclicked the icon and waited in expectation... the icon bounces in the Dock for a while, disk thrashes, then the icon disappears again but NeoOffice refuses to start AND gives no error messages at all.
I read the comments in the forum, done the permission thing, read the log file (rather large) this is a selection of what it contains:
Mac OS X Versie 10.4.3 (build 8F46)
2005-12-07 22:19:36 +0100
2005-12-07 22:19:39.280 SystemUIServer[107] lang is:nl
pax: Ustar header field is too small for .
pax: Ustar header field is too small for ./registry
pax: Ustar header field is too small for ./registry/cache
pax: Ustar header field is too small for ./registry/cache/._org.openoffice.Setup.dat
<snip>
pax: Ustar header field is too small for ./uno_packages
pax: Ustar header field is too small for ./wordbook
pax: Cannot identify format. Searching...
pax: End of archive volume 1 reached
pax: Sorry, unable to determine archive format.
Error: Installation of files in the /Users/Paul/Library/Preferences/NeoOffice-1.x/user directory failed
Posted: Wed Dec 07, 2005 2:57 pm Post subject: Re: neooffice won't start
Paulwh80 wrote:
What should I do? Is there anything i can do?
I did a quick Google search on the "Ustar" error and it seems that the "pax" command runs into this error when you are unpacking files to a UFS file system that were packed from an HFS file system. Are you mounting your home directory from another machine? If so, do you know what OS the machine is running?
Unfortunately, I haven't found any solution for this but, if you are willing, we can try messing with the pax commands in the script that copies files.
Edit: How much free space do you have in your home directory? I am curious if the pax command is choking because your home directory has no free disk space.
Posted: Wed Dec 07, 2005 8:34 pm Post subject: Re: neooffice won't start
pluby wrote:
Paulwh80 wrote:
What should I do? Is there anything i can do?
I did a quick Google search on the "Ustar" error and it seems that the "pax" command runs into this error when you are unpacking files to a UFS file system that were packed from an HFS file system. Are you mounting your home directory from another machine? If so, do you know what OS the machine is running?
Patrick:
This is becoming a subject on the porting list. They are working on solution on why you cannot mount from NFS the user's preference directory.
Posted: Wed Dec 07, 2005 10:15 pm Post subject: Re: neooffice won't start
jjmckenzie51 wrote:
This is becoming a subject on the porting list. They are working on solution on why you cannot mount from NFS the user's preference directory.
Actually, what they are talking about is the code that I donated to OOo last April that fixes the file locking issues on mounted filesystems. NeoOffice has been able to run on mounted file systems for at least the last 18 months.
The pax problem is a new one that I have never seen before and may be related to any a very specific mounted file system (or maybe not even mounted at all).
Posted: Wed Dec 07, 2005 10:39 pm Post subject: Re: neooffice won't start
pluby wrote:
jjmckenzie51 wrote:
This is becoming a subject on the porting list. They are working on solution on why you cannot mount from NFS the user's preference directory.
Actually, what they are talking about is the code that I donated to OOo last April that fixes the file locking issues on mounted filesystems. NeoOffice has been able to run on mounted file systems for at least the last 18 months.
Next thing you know, they'll be wondering why they can't handle Mac aliases! (in spite of the fact there are *two* bugs open on that and many moons ago I commented in both of them that the code was in Patrick's April? donation).
Good grief.
Smokey _________________ "[...] whether the duck drinks hot chocolate or coffee is irrelevant." -- ovvldc and sardisson in the NeoWiki
Posted: Thu Dec 08, 2005 11:27 am Post subject: Neooffice won't start
Hi,
Thanks for your troubles although it's still not starting. I don't know anything about mounting filesystems. I am the proud owner of a mac mini with one user, me. it runs on Mac OS X 10.4.3. It has 62.38 GB of diskspace free.
Could you explain what 'mounting a filesystem' means? Or should i buy ms-office instead? I was very very happy to get rid of that stupid bundle of crappy software. Me being a VBA programmer...
Posted: Thu Dec 08, 2005 11:33 am Post subject: Re: Neooffice won't start
Paulwh80 wrote:
Could you explain what 'mounting a filesystem' means? Or should i buy ms-office instead? I was very very happy to get rid of that stupid bundle of crappy software. Me being a VBA programmer...
Can you open the /Applications/Utilities/Terminal application, execute the following command, and post the output?:
Second edit: can you also download the hack patch listed in bug 1198 and see if that fixes the problem? In the hack patch, I tweaked all of the pax commands in the hopes that pax will now work.
Posted: Thu Dec 08, 2005 11:13 pm Post subject: neooffice won't start
hi,
i'm having the same issue...
tried the patch hack as well, but did not receive any different results--still hangs, no error message, and i don't even get the full tool bar at the top, just the 'apple icon and the bold 'NeoOffice'. sometimes (tried this about 50 times tonight) it seems to grab firefox as well--freezing firefox and only showing the 'apple icon' and bold 'firefox' in the toolbar.
Posted: Fri Dec 09, 2005 7:39 am Post subject: Re: neooffice won't start
pluby wrote:
Actually, what they are talking about is the code that I donated to OOo last April that fixes the file locking issues on mounted filesystems. NeoOffice has been able to run on mounted file systems for at least the last 18 months.
Someone is reading these forums because there was an update to the IssueZilla on this problem and your name was definately mentioned with the words "code works".
pluby wrote:
The pax problem is a new one that I have never seen before and may be related to any a very specific mounted file system (or maybe not even mounted at all).
If I could get it to repeat on my system, without UFS, then that would be a start. However, I cannot with any of the NeoOffice builds that I have. I will have to update my cvs checkout and build again.
Posted: Fri Dec 09, 2005 9:55 am Post subject: Re: neooffice won't start
ohno wrote:
i'm having the same issue...
tried the patch hack as well, but did not receive any different results--still hangs, no error message, and i don't even get the full tool bar at the top, just the 'apple icon and the bold 'NeoOffice'. sometimes (tried this about 50 times tonight) it seems to grab firefox as well--freezing firefox and only showing the 'apple icon' and bold 'firefox' in the toolbar.
This does not sound like the same issue at all. Paulwh80's problem was that NeoOffice crashed on startup and he found many messages in his Console log that indicated that his user preferences files could not be created.
In your case, Neo starts up fine but appears to be in an infinite loop that is chewing up all available CPU so that no other app has a chance to run (FYI, Neo cannot "grab" any other application, it can only hog system resources like memory and CPU so that there is less for other apps).
Have you tried the steps documented in the Wiki first i.e. killing Neo, moving your ~/Library/Preferences/NeoOffice-1.x folder, and restarting? These steps for force Neo to recreate a clean copy of your user preference files. If Neo works fine after doing this, then the problem was due to corrupted user preference files.
Posted: Sat Dec 10, 2005 12:38 am Post subject: neooffice won't start
hi again,
thanks for the reply. just wanted to update you--though i don't have anything conclusive....;(
i was getting all of the same error messages in my console...promise.
i did not try moving the ~/library/preferences...my bad.
however, did install the 'hack patch' listed on this string. i cannot blame for what follows, but i think it's a good candidate...i shut down and could not reboot. i finally reboot in safe mode and the console notes that it won't boot due to a "dirty file system". i don't know what that means, other than that it wasn't good.
i just reinstalled os x, this time on an extended (journaled) partition (not UFS as i previously had) and everything went smoothly. that is to say, neooffice loaded smoothly and quickly without issue.
---i know i'm not giving you any *good* information here (specifics), but thought that others might want to back up there data before trying the 'hack patch' listed here--though, to reiterate, i'm not certain that is what caused my issues...
Posted: Sat Dec 10, 2005 1:23 am Post subject: Re: neooffice won't start
ohno wrote:
however, did install the 'hack patch' listed on this string. i cannot blame for what follows, but i think it's a good candidate...i shut down and could not reboot. i finally reboot in safe mode and the console notes that it won't boot due to a "dirty file system". i don't know what that means, other than that it wasn't good.
I highly doubt Neo could do something like this. After all, Neo only reads and write plain old files. A "dirty file system" means that Mac OS X is having trouble reading your hard drive. Hard drives don't last forever and, as they get old, things like bad disk sectors can appear.
Reformatting your hard drive works because the formatting program can identify bad sectors and avoid writing to them. However, when a sector goes bad, the part of the disk is damaged and Mac OS X cannot retrieve any data from it. Not surprisingly, this can cause all sorts of havoc on a system.
You may want to run the Disk Utilities disk repair program periodically to detect any new bad sectors on your disk as bad sectors can, but not always, indicate impending disk failure.
I am always amazed how long most disks work without any problems. Making disks spin at several thousand RPMs with a magnet hovering millionths of an inch above its rotating surface is quite an impressive engineering feat, IMO. Nevertheless, I have known many friends who have experienced disk failure. No matter which OS they use or which type of machine, dealing with a disk failure was a major headache.
On the command cat /Applications/NeoOffice.app/Contents/MacOS/bootstraprc it said 'no such file or directory' meaning I have already removed neooffice from my system. I must most humbly admit that I installed openoffice.org. This worked smoothly even though it's only a RC.
You must excuse me, we only have one computer which is in permanent use, we need to share files with people who only use MS-Office for work, so we are not completely comfortable with things called 'hack patches' Also considering the fact that we have two weeks of Mac experience. But still, if the above might bring a solution we will be happy to try again. Having ADSL, downloading is no problem.
You must excuse me, we only have one computer which is in permanent use, we need to share files with people who only use MS-Office for work, so we are not completely comfortable with things called 'hack patches' Also considering the fact that we have two weeks of Mac experience. But still, if the above might bring a solution we will be happy to try again. Having ADSL, downloading is no problem.
No problem. If this is a shared machine I understand that you cannot afford to risk "playing around" with your machine's software.
Anyway, if you are feeling up to it, I did put a very minor change in the latest official "Patch-5" that I released yesterday. Either "Patch-5" will fix the pax command problems or Neo will have the exact same problem.
You can get "Patch-5" from the Neo patch download page at:
Anyway, if you are feeling up to it, I did put a very minor change in the latest official "Patch-5" that I released yesterday. Either "Patch-5" will fix the pax command problems or Neo will have the exact same problem.
Downloaded again, downloaded the patch (nr 6) installed both. It's unclear to me what a patch could do with a unsuccesful install, since I run the patch after the install has unsuccesfully finished? Got exactly the same behaviour,bouncing icon etc. Thought: maybe install again AFTER the patch has run, now ther is a title bar which says 'neooffice' but my machine is frozen. Could swith back to safari with alt+tab but when switching back to neoofice this won't go. clicking the dock icon doesn't do anything. One step further. The last two lines in the log file are:
pax: File ./registry/cache/._org.openoffice.Setup.dat had metadata that could not be copied
pax: File ./registry/cache/._org.openoffice.Inet.dat had metadata that could not be copied
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