[Solved] LibreOffice 3.5 issues

[Jon]

In the last couple of days I've installed LibreOffice 3.5 on 3 machines, one running Windows XP, one running Windows 7 32-bit, and the third running Windows 7 64-bit. On both of the first two I've had problems, typical of LibreOffice upgrades (I'll save my rant for later). Before I get into the specific issue, let me recommend that anyone considering the upgrade wait until they come up with 3.5.1 or even 3.5.2. IMHO, the ODF people are following an upgrade policy which is questionable at best.

Specifically, I'm looking for a solution to a problem on the XP machine. I installed 3.5 over 3.45 and every time I try to open a template in the first screen, I get an error message: "Error creating a new document. Templates already exists." After closing the error message, the templates dialog box opens and the error message repeats. After choosing a template, the template opens and the error message appears again.

The same problem occurs with just the message "Templates already exists" if I try to open a new writer document from the file menu, or by clicking on "Text Document" in the opening screen. It doesn't happen with Calc, Draw, or Impress documents.

I completely uninstalled LibreOffice and did an almost clean install of 3.5. I say "almost" because I didn't uninstall my user documents. There was no change. The exact same problem continues.

[Villeroy]

I completely uninstalled LibreOffice and did an almost clean install of 3.5. I say "almost" because I didn't uninstall my user documents. There was no change. The exact same problem continues.

Since this is not a typical Windows application, replacing a package with the same package is likely to yield the same installation byte by byte.
Given that your download is not corrupted, it is the user profile which may fix weird issues. The downloaded file can be checked by means of md5 check sums.

Close all soffice.exe. Mind the "quick starter", check with task manager.
Backup (rename) the user profile folder C:\Documents&Settings\<login_name>\LibreOffice\3\
Start again and say "no" if you are prompted to take over any settings from some other installation.
Ifhis gives a clean, completely uncustomized but working installation it should be possible to merge most of the old profle back into the current setup.

[Jon]

I decided there wasn't enough customization to my installation to fool with backing up the user profile folder, then gradually merge it back. I just deleted it and that resolved the problem.

[thomasjk]

See my post here http://www.oooforum.org/forum/viewtopic ... 367#469367 for solving the problem.

[Jon]

Right. If I had needed to redo all of my templates, this would have been a serious matter. As it turns out, I keep my templates in a different folder in my main documents directory and then change the path settings in Options.

Incidentally, there was another bug also resolved by doing away with (or renaming) the user directory. I found that the recent document always came up empty before I deleted the user directory. It's working fine now.