LibreOffice Won't Start

How, specifically, did you install LibreOffice? Are you *sure* that it was installed with Ubuntu? Ubuntu 11.04 (which is still in development) will install LibreOffice (when you install that version of Ubuntu on your computer), but Ubuntu 10.10 does not do so. Not with any of the official install CD's, anyway.

This problem most often occurs as a result of installing LibreOffice without completely removing OpenOffice.org first, and the solution is typically to completely remove LibreOffice, completely remove OpenOffice.org, and then reinstall LibreOffice. But that solution may or may not apply to your situation, depending on how LibreOffice got installed in the first place.

Also, please open a Terminal window (Ctrl+Alt+T or Applications > Accessories > Terminal) and run the command:

lsb_release -a

Then copy the text produced by running that command, and paste it here.

Then, run this second command:

apt-cache policy libreoffice\* > ~/Desktop/libreoffice-packages.txt

To run that command, since it is complex and easy to get wrong, select it, copy it to the clipboard, paste it into the Terminal, and press enter. It must fit all on one line when you copy it to the clipboard; if you're viewing this in your email and it doesn't fit on one line, come here to https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/libreoffice/+question/151112 and copy it.

That command creates a text file on your desktop called libreoffice-packages.txt. Then open that text file, select all the text in it, copy it to the clipboard, paste it at http://paste.ubuntu.com/, and click Paste!. You'll be provided with a URL; paste that URL here. By knowing how you installed LibreOffice (if you know), seeing the output of "lsb_release -a", and seeing the contents of libreoffice-packages.txt, I may be able to help you.

Eliah, thanks for your help.

1. How I Installed LibreOffice (if I know): I think I went to the Ubuntu download site and got the latest stable release, which was 10.10. I had been using the previous Ubuntu version with OpenOffice, and I'd been planning to drop OpenOffice and install LibreOffice after the Ubuntu version upgrade. When the Ubuntu installation completed, I was pleased to see that OpenOffice was gone and LibreOffice was in its place.

2. Result of lsb_release -a:

linuxbox@linuxbox-desktop:~$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 10.10
Release: 10.10
Codename: maverick

3. Result of apt-cache policy libreoffice\* > ~/Desktop/libreoffice-packages.txt:

Results are at http://paste.ubuntu.com/587800/

Jim

Hello,

The information you need to install LibreOffice is documented in the Full Circle Magazine #46.

There is also a tutorial in #46 and #47.

You can download this excellent free magazine from: http://fullcirclemagazine.org/

Regards,

Allan :)

Allan,

Thanks for the tip about Full Circle Magazine. I've just now subscribed.

Unfortunately, the information about installing LibreOffice provided in the article in #46 just confirms (I think) that I have it correctly installed. I ran the following commands in the terminal with the results listed in http://paste.ubuntu.com/588264/:

     sudo add-apt-repository ppa:libreoffice/ppa
     sudo apt-get update
     sudo apt-get install libreoffice

. . . and I also ran:

     sudo apt-get autoremove

to get rid of 90.5 MB of no-longer-required packages.

None of this resulted in any improvement. I still can't open any LibreOffice apps.

Hello,

You may have inadvertently uninstalled something. Go to the Ubuntu Software Center or the Synaptic Package Manager and see what you have installed and then uninstall LibreOffice.

Then install it again.

It is well worth the effort. I am using LibreOffice on 10.10 and it is a lot faster the OO.

Regards,

Allan :)

OK. We actually already know what LibreOffice packages are installed, because that's the information in http://paste.ubuntu.com/587800/. Furthermore, the information there was sufficient to verify the software source, as that information is also provided in the output of "apt-cache policy" commands. It's true that there are other packages, besides what's listed there, on which OpenOffice.org depends, but it would be difficult for the package "libreoffice" to be installed without them...and even more difficult for the subsequent "sudo apt-get install libreoffice" command not to have produced output about them.

It seems more likely, especially considering that there is confusion (or at least great weirdness) about *how* and *when* LibreOffice was installed, that remaining OpenOffice.org components may be lying around and interfering. The other thing this hypothesis has going for it is that left over OpenOffice.org components is a known cause for this specific error.

So I'd suggest checking for components related to OpenOffice.org. Some of them are also related to Libreoffice (or to be more precise about it, some of them have the same name as Libreoffice components), so seeing that some are installed is not necessarily an indication that anything is wrong. The details accompanying those entries will provide the necessary information to know which of the two office suites they accompany. This command will produce yet another file on the desktop, with this information:

apt-cache policy broffice.org cli-uno-bridge libuno-cli-\* \
  mozilla-openoffice.org openoffice.org\* python-uno \
  ttf-opensymbol uno-\* ure\* > ~/Desktop/all-OOo-packages.txt

That is a single command, even though it spans three lines. To run it, copy the whole thing at once to the clipboard, paste it into the Terminal, and press enter. When you copy it, make sure it doesn't take up *more* than three lines. If it does, then you'll have to come to https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/libreoffice/+question/151112, where lines are able to be a bit longer than they might be in your email.

Then you can paste the contents of all-OOo-packages.txt at http://paste.ubuntu.com, and post a link to it here.

Sorry, there's a mistake in that command, which will cause it to produce lots of extraneous information. Please hold off for a moment on running it; I'll post a correction shortly.

Here, please use this instead. It still will produce a lot of text, but with hardly any irrelevant entries:

apt-cache policy broffice.org cli-uno-bridge \
  libuno-cli-\* mozilla-openoffice.org openoffice.org\* \
  python-uno ttf-opensymbol uno-libs3\* ure ure-dbg \
  > ~/Desktop/all-OOo-packages.txt

(That command should take up four lines.)

Per ahambidge's suggestion, I uninstalled LibreOffice. Then, before attempting to reinstall LibreOffice, I ran Eliah's (improved) search for orphan OpenOffice files. It produced the result in http://paste.ubuntu.com/588297/.

From looking at that, it seems unlikely that old OpenOffice.org components are left over. So it seems that ahambidge's approach is best after all. Have you attemped to reinstall LibreOffice yet? Did/does that work? If it doesn't work, does the error change in any way? Does anything unusual happen when you install?

If you haven't tried reinstalling it yet, then when you reinstall it, just specify that the package "libreoffice" (without the quotes) is to be installed. That will pull in lots of other packages--as well it should--but by only installing that one package, you minimize the probability of accidentally installing something that isn't part of LibreOffice proper and could cause problems. (Installing "libreoffice" will install all the LibreOffice applications--when it works correctly, it gives the full suite.)

I haven't tried reinstalling yet, but I will. Eliah, when you say that I should just specify that the package "libreoffice" is to be installed, are you advising me to do something different from running the following commands? If so, what?

     sudo add-apt-repository ppa:libreoffice/ppa
     sudo apt-get update
     sudo apt-get install libreoffice

"Are you advising me to do something different from running the following commands?"

Nope. Those commands are good. Though you can probably leave off the first one, unless you've removed the PPA from your software sources since last adding it.

Alas, reinstalling LibreOffice returns me to the same problem that I had to start with. Here's how the installation went: http://paste.ubuntu.com/588364/.

I think I'll just start over and reinstall Ubuntu 10.10, etc. On Sunday. I need this PC to demo Sketchup on Saturday, and I don't want to break something that's working.

Thanks for the time you've spent trying to help me with this. I'll post here if reinstalling Ubuntu fixes the problem.

Please also post here if reinstalling Ubuntu doesn't fix the problem, so we can keep working on the problem!

By the way, if you want to work on it in the mean time (before you get a chance to reinstall Ubuntu), please run this command and post the output:

ls -l /etc/apt/sources.list.d

(Also, please note that if a command's output is only a few hundred lines, or less, you may want to post that here. It has more permanence...and people who view this question don't have to undertake any extra effort to see it and perhaps experience an a-ha! moment.)

Here's the result of ls -l/etc/apt/sources.list.d:

     total 8
     -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 136 2011-04-01 15:06 libreoffice-ppa-maverick.list
     -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 136 2011-04-01 15:06 libreoffice-ppa-maverick.list.save

Reinstalling Ubuntu 10.10 and then installing LibreOffice fixed the problem. Thanks to the folks who tried to figure out what was going wrong with the prior installation.