You are viewing a plain text version of this content. The canonical link for it is here.
Posted to issues@openoffice.apache.org by bu...@apache.org on 2015/08/24 03:02:06 UTC
[Issue 126487] New: Showstopper stability issue meets showstopper
usability issue
https://bz.apache.org/ooo/show_bug.cgi?id=126487
Issue ID: 126487
Issue Type: DEFECT
Summary: Showstopper stability issue meets showstopper
usability issue
Product: Writer
Version: 4.0.0
Hardware: All
OS: All
Status: UNCONFIRMED
Severity: normal
Priority: P5
Component: code
Assignee: issues@openoffice.apache.org
Reporter: jonathan.hayward@pobox.com
Attn: J.Q. Public: Your “list index” is “out of range”
I have been using OpenOffice (presently 4.0) to expand and maintain the
collection of my favorites that I have written, which is presently 600-700
pages in length and has been modified over time by the addition of (short)
works. My experience is that OpenOffice.org does great for drafting a letter or
a five page work, but if you want something hundreds of pages long, it becomes
remarkably brittle.
I went to do some maintenance, shuffling chapters slightly and providing an
added work, when I was unpleasantly surprised by a popup saying, "List index
out of range." I'm a programmer and a usability advocate at heart, and I winced
when I saw those words presented to the general public. That I am also a
programmer and know what "List index out of range" means is besides the point;
it offers no particular insight as to what the defect is or how I could avoid
it. (When I clicked OK, OpenOffice.org crashed completely.)
But I noticed that one part had signs of a variant style of markup, so I tried
a potential workaround. Same behavior, same inappropriate error message.
I c
--
You are receiving this mail because:
You are the assignee for the issue.
[Issue 126487] Showstopper stability issue meets showstopper
usability issue
Posted by bu...@apache.org.
https://bz.apache.org/ooo/show_bug.cgi?id=126487
--- Comment #7 from Jonathan Hayward <jo...@pobox.com> ---
Unexpected comment on trying to duplicate it:
I wasn't able to restore from backup, so I tried to download a fresh 4.0.0 from
OpenOffice.org (you might prefer AOO, but I was trying to replicate conditions
as closely as possible.
It wouldn't let me download 4.0.0 under any version of OSX near my current
version (10.10.4 Yosemite).
Does Apache Open Office get along with current version of OSX?
If it does not get along (which would explain not only the crash I reported,
but the stream of crashes earlier which had me avoiding editing when I could,
and pretty close to pulling the 90's trick of saving the file every time you
stop to think), there should be some clearly pushed message of "You need to
upgrade; this version of AOO is too old to run with your modern computer."
I tried briefly with freshly downloaded 4.0.0, without image optimization, and
I could move things around with immediately triggering a crash. I did notice
that I had to try several times to locate the article with the images in it; a
heading of "Where is the good of women?", case insensitive, failed to match a
header that was exactly "Where Is the Good of Women?"
My suggestion based on what I could observe and quickly reproduce is that,
based on http://www.openoffice.org/download/index.html (I hope I'm not igniting
political friction here), 4.0.0 should not be used with OSX >= 10.7), and that
if someone like me upgraded OSX a few times without upgrading AOO, there should
be some better way to tell 4.0.0 users "You need to upgrade" than crashes (I
couldn't reproduce steps to a crash with my brief attempts here, but I had
earlier experienced crashes with any extended usage.
--
You are receiving this mail because:
You are the assignee for the issue.
[Issue 126487] Showstopper stability issue meets showstopper
usability issue
Posted by bu...@apache.org.
https://bz.apache.org/ooo/show_bug.cgi?id=126487
--- Comment #6 from Jonathan Hayward <jo...@pobox.com> ---
The downloaded 4.1.1 clobbered my previous 4.0.0; let me see if I can restore
the previous version from backup and see if image compression affects the
behavior tomorrow.
I was surprised by the allegation that the book has lots of images. The book is
a total of 700 pages; twelve, perhaps, contain images. (Actually, I can't
remember a single image outside of the article 'Where Is the Good of Women?
Feminism Is Called "The Women's Movement." But Is It?', now paginated 578-607.
(Note that I just uploaded a fresh version.) It may well be the bulk of the
book's weight in bytes comes from images, but please, it doesn't take much
imagery at all to outweigh a large volume of text + markup. Removing that
chapter should be able to give some knowledge of whether crashes are due to the
images.
That chapter occurs very late in the text, and all of the crashed manipulations
I attempted earlier were earlier in the text. (Note that I don't know whether
"later in text layout" has any necessary correspondence with "later in file
format".)
I'll try to see if I can give more useful diagnostics tomorrow.
--
You are receiving this mail because:
You are the assignee for the issue.
[Issue 126487] Showstopper stability issue meets showstopper
usability issue
Posted by bu...@apache.org.
https://bz.apache.org/ooo/show_bug.cgi?id=126487
orcmid <or...@apache.org> changed:
What |Removed |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
CC| |orcmid@apache.org
--- Comment #5 from orcmid <or...@apache.org> ---
(In reply to Jonathan Hayward from comment #4)
> I'm presently exploring if I can workaround the difficulty with an AOO 4.1.1
> build. Dodging the issue by saying "But that doesn't happen with another
> build on another platform" is inappropriate.
Thank you for your perseverance. It would be useful to know if compression of
images makes a difference. It might help pin-point where things go sideways.
--
You are receiving this mail because:
You are the assignee for the issue.
[Issue 126487] Showstopper stability issue meets showstopper
usability issue
Posted by bu...@apache.org.
https://bz.apache.org/ooo/show_bug.cgi?id=126487
--- Comment #8 from oooforum <oo...@free.fr> ---
(In reply to Jonathan Hayward from comment #6)
> The downloaded 4.1.1 clobbered my previous 4.0.0
When you jump to a major version, you should reset your profile.
See: http://forum.openoffice.org/en/forum/viewtopic.php?f=74&t=12426
> I was surprised by the allegation that the book has lots of images.
Not a lot of but big filesize.
Your document contains 5 pictures for a total of 5.35Mb
As said in my comment #3, not reproduce with a 4.1.1.
If you stayed in 4.0.0, you encountered probably the issue 124999
--
You are receiving this mail because:
You are the assignee for the issue.
[Issue 126487] Showstopper stability issue meets showstopper
usability issue
Posted by bu...@apache.org.
https://bz.apache.org/ooo/show_bug.cgi?id=126487
oooforum <oo...@free.fr> changed:
What |Removed |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Status|UNCONFIRMED |RESOLVED
Resolution|--- |IRREPRODUCIBLE
--- Comment #9 from oooforum <oo...@free.fr> ---
No news since +30 days: closed
--
You are receiving this mail because:
You are the assignee for the issue.
[Issue 126487] Showstopper stability issue meets showstopper
usability issue
Posted by bu...@apache.org.
https://bz.apache.org/ooo/show_bug.cgi?id=126487
--- Comment #1 from Jonathan Hayward <jo...@pobox.com> ---
The file where I was having the usability issue appears to be overweight for
acceptable attachments (7.7MB). I have for now placed it at
cjsh.name/project/the_best_of_jonathans_corner_head.odt
Would like to know if any other available OOo version does not crash when
working with this file.
--
You are receiving this mail because:
You are the assignee for the issue.
[Issue 126487] Showstopper stability issue meets showstopper
usability issue
Posted by bu...@apache.org.
https://bz.apache.org/ooo/show_bug.cgi?id=126487
Jonathan Hayward <jo...@pobox.com> changed:
What |Removed |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
CC| |jonathan.hayward@pobox.com
--- Comment #2 from Jonathan Hayward <jo...@pobox.com> ---
Gave wrong URL; should be
https://CJSHayward.com/project/the_best_of_jonathans_corner_body.odt
--
You are receiving this mail because:
You are the assignee for the issue.
[Issue 126487] Showstopper stability issue meets showstopper
usability issue
Posted by bu...@apache.org.
https://bz.apache.org/ooo/show_bug.cgi?id=126487
oooforum <oo...@free.fr> changed:
What |Removed |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
CC| |oooforum@free.fr
Resolution|--- |NOT_AN_ISSUE
Status|UNCONFIRMED |RESOLVED
--- Comment #3 from oooforum <oo...@free.fr> ---
I was not be able to reproduce what you described with AOO 4.1.1 and Win7 x64.
But your document is huge because it contains much pictures.
Try this extension: http://extensions.openoffice.org/en/project/pixcompress
After compression, it descreases to 1.3 Mb.
--
You are receiving this mail because:
You are the assignee for the issue.
[Issue 126487] Showstopper stability issue meets showstopper
usability issue
Posted by bu...@apache.org.
https://bz.apache.org/ooo/show_bug.cgi?id=126487
Jonathan Hayward <jo...@pobox.com> changed:
What |Removed |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Status|RESOLVED |UNCONFIRMED
Resolution|NOT_AN_ISSUE |---
--- Comment #4 from Jonathan Hayward <jo...@pobox.com> ---
I reported an error in a supported version, 4.0.0 (happened to be under OSX),
and gave a document which triggered consistent crashes on serious manipulation.
The response is that the crash did not manifest under a separate version and
platform.
As a response, this is sheer non sequitur, and as a developer speaking who
cares about usability, you should be greatly concerned if any supported version
of the Office suite says "list index out of range" to a (probable) member of
the general public, and immediately crashes. A proper usability response would
be to pounce on an opportunity to nail a usability defect as severe as the
crash.
I'm presently exploring if I can workaround the difficulty with an AOO 4.1.1
build. Dodging the issue by saying "But that doesn't happen with another build
on another platform" is inappropriate.
--
You are receiving this mail because:
You are the assignee for the issue.