OOo won't launch

[JohnJasonJordan]

OOo 3.1.1 from www.openoffice.org, 64-bit, installed on Fedora 11, x86_64.

It was working right after I installed it. Now it suddenly won't launch. From the command line I get:

[jjj@Devil8 ~]$ openoffice.org3 -writer %U <- copied and pasted from the launch menu properties
/opt/openoffice.org3/program/soffice.bin: error while loading shared libraries: libuno_sal.so.3: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

I installed it using the "Linux RPM-based Installation" instructions at http://download.openoffice.org/common/instructions.html, including the desktop integration RPM.

None of the programs in OOo will launch - Writer, Calc, Impress, etc. All the rest of my installed applications launch just fine.

I found a thread here:

http://user.services.openoffice.org/...=10766&p=53002

Which says I need to install openoffice.org-ure-1.5.1-9420.x86_64. I tried to install it with package manager, but got this error:

Can't install <path>openoffice.org-ure-1.5.1-9420.x86_64.rpm as no transaction

OK, maybe the package never got installed when I did it the first time and I missed the error message. Yet it launched after installation. I know it launched because the whole purpose of installing the OOo version of 3.1.1 was to get AutoCorrect working, which Fedora deleted
in their version of the no-go OOo.

Furthermore, in spite of the error message, looking in Yumex I note that openoffice.org-ure is installed, and it has an icon next to it saying it was not installed from the Fedora repositories.

Also, I installed the packages from the command line as root, rather than use the setup script in the download file. I did so because the instructions at the OOo website said doing so would install OOo globally for all users, not just for me.

I found a lot of other reports where OOo on Fedora launches after installing one time, and then never more. This appears to be what is happening to me. But all the other reports go back as far as FC8. None address OOo 3.1.1, which has a different folder structure.

I think the problem is a broken link, but I don't know what the link is or how to fix it.

I sure hope someone has a solution. I have a paper to write and no word processor!

[JEO]

The issue seems to be related to the version number of the openoffice.org-ure-3.1.1 package that comes with F11. After you do a yum update it thinks that it is a newer version and thus overwrites the "older" version that you want to have installed. You can downgrade an rpm manually from the command line.

su -
cd (directory containing openoffice.org-ure-1.5.1-9420.x86_64.rpm)
rpm -Uvh --oldpackage openoffice.org-ure-1.5.1-9420.x86_64.rpm

Also you will want to add the package name to an exclude line in /etc/yum.conf to prevent it from being updated again:

exclude=openoffice.org-ure

[JohnJasonJordan]

Originally Posted by JEO

The issue seems to be related to the version number of the openoffice.org-ure-3.1.1 package that comes with F11. After you do a yum update it thinks that it is a newer version and thus overwrites the "older" version that you want to have installed. You can downgrade an rpm manually from the command line.

su -
cd (directory containing openoffice.org-ure-1.5.1-9420.x86_64.rpm)
rpm -Uvh --oldpackage openoffice.org-ure-1.5.1-9420.x86_64.rpm

Also you will want to add the package name to an exclude line in /etc/yum.conf to prevent it from being updated again:

exclude=openoffice.org-ure

I already tried reinstalling the package that was in the downloaded tarball from OOo. Plus, I only installed this version of OOo a few days ago and there have been no updates since then.

I also completely uninstalled and then reinstalled the entire thing. As before, it launched fine, but when I shut it down I was unable to launch it again. This is a very bizarre bug. According to everything I read it affects only Fedora.

Note that when I installed Fedora 11 x86_64 it automatically installed 3.1.1. I uninstalled it completely before I installed 3.1.1 from www.openoffice.org. I see that now I have two folders in /opt/:

openoffice.org

basis3.1help
presets
program
share
ure-link <- Nautilus says this link is broken

openoffice.org3

basis-link <- Nautilus shows this with a folder icon and a link arrow. The link points to the above basis3.1 folder
help
presets
program
share
ure-link <- Nautilus says this link is broken

I don't know which folder is which. But clearly there are broken links. I don't know what they are supposed to be pointing at. Furthermore, the error message that I get when I try to launch OOo says that it can't find libuno_sal.so.3. According to Nautilus that file is in /usr/lib64/openoffice.org/ure/lib.

One thing that would help is to know which folder Fedora created when it installed OOo during the installation of Fedora and which folder is the one that was created when I installed the www.openoffice.org version of OOo.

[JEO]

In the Fedora 11 version nothing is installed in /opt, the openoffice.org and openoffice.org3 are in /usr/lib.

There is a ure folder in openoffice.org, and there is a ure-link inside the basis3.1 folder pointing to ../ure

Maybe you can find out why your ure folder in openoffice.org folder is disappearing when you run it? Very strange indeed.

[JohnJasonJordan]

Originally Posted by JEO

In the Fedora 11 version nothing is installed in /opt, the openoffice.org and openoffice.org3 are in /usr/lib.

There is a ure folder in openoffice.org, and there is a ure-link inside the basis3.1 folder pointing to ../ure

Maybe you can find out why your ure folder in openoffice.org folder is disappearing when you run it? Very strange indeed.

I finally got it working.

First I uninstalled everything related to OOo. I used Yumex and searched on "openoffice" to find all the packages. Later when I went to reinstall the RPMs from www.openoffice.org I discovered that I missed the Java Runtime Environment package, so I uninstalled it from the command line with yum.

Then I used Nautilus to search on "openoffice." Indeed, I found the Fedora version files in /usr/lib/. I also found a bunch of other files. I renamed them all. The only "openoffice" I left intact was my config file ~/.openoffice.org.

Then I installed the RPMs from the command line again with rpm Uvih *.rpm. When it finished I changed to the desktop-integration folder and installed the RPM for the Red Hat desktop. And that is where I think I messed up the first time around.

Until a couple months ago I lived in the Debian world, so I am not fully familiar with RPMs. I distinctly remember the first time I installed this version of OOo I used yum to install the desktop integration folder instead of rpm. I did so again this time, but this time I noticed it was downloading a file. "Wait!" I cried out. It was supposed to be installing the file on disk, not the file from the repo. So I used yum to uninstall it, then installed it with rpm. And subsequently I noticed that Update Software lists an update available for the package. I imagine that is what went wrong. I was using the wrong desktop integration package for this version of OOo.

I have launched it, shut it down, relaunched it, rebooted, relaunched it, and all appears well. Now all I need to do is add the package name to an exclude line in yum.conf, as you mentioned before.

Thanks for the suggestions, even if it turns out it was all my fault for not understanding the difference between yum and rpm.