memory use increases when using spreadsheet
 

I'm using libre office to make some spreadsheets.

There's a funny thing that happens sometimes, namely that the memory used starts to increase steadily until everything including mouse freezes, ie I can no longer close anything and have to switch the computer off.
When restarting it's ok till I do the same thing again and this quirk repeats itself.

It seems that copying from one sheet and switching to another to paste and doing it quickly sets this off. If I pause or close the application and restart and then paste the clipboard contents it doesn't happen.

So now I don't have the problem by avoiding doing what I think is the trigger, but I'm curious about what could be the problem.

(P4, 2 gig RAM, 1 gig FSB etc)

Any ideas what's happening, please, or where to find out if this is not a q for this forum, please.

Thank you.

Could be aproblem with fault RAM. Run memtest to check it.

Could be, I guess, but it sounds more like a bug in libre office.

Thanks for that. I hadn't thought of RAM faults. I have assumed the boot checked that, but I'll look into that next reboot or so and maybe try a proprietary mem checker. However, because this seems a libre specific event I'm inclined to go with the mem's ok as a working hypothesis for now and consider the bug angle.

Generally a bug in software is not experienced by just one person so I'm a bit surprised but then again I do have a knack for making things not work but I don't think that's the case here.

What sort of thing does produce this incessant increasing consumption of memory. Kind of reminds me of a virus. Could that be a consideration? That seems a bit farfetched because it seems an odd way to trigger such unless it's already running and this reveals it. I have no idea and am glad to hear anything anyone has to say on this.

Well, have you checked all of libre office's bug reports?

It reminds me of my program getting stuck in a loop, constantly allocating memory. This should be checkable: ulimit can set a bound on the amount of memory libre office can allocate. Then, when you trigger this again only libre office will be terminated without slowing your system to a crawl. Or you have top (press M to sort by memory use) on screen when you trigger it, and check if it's only libre office's memory consumption increasing.

We tried libre office but switched back to OO for this very reason. (about 30-40 users). This was on a windows platform at my office.

Advantages of OO:
(1) Power point files created in MS, render correctly in OO but not in LO. This is important for us.
(2) Help is on the local machine (you dont need internet) to do basic trouble shooting.

Advantages of LO:
(1) Help files are better but need internet (not feasible in our office). Eg. All keyboard shortcuts that an advanced user needs (about 8 out of 35 persons).
(2) Some features found in OO 3.3 of Linux but not in OO 3.2 on windows (eg. DataPilot(pivot) now writes in a separate sheet) are correct in LO.
(3) Font rendition is better.

But at this point of time, the disadvantages outweigh the advantages for a running organisation.

OK

AnanthaP, I assume "this very reason" is this memory looping?*** (I managed to make it happen again and followed the mem use in system monitor and killed the process while I could. It's actually not such a big problem for me as nothing I'm doing for now is critical but If I get it (the sheet) working I'll most likely not want to have this problem.)

(the online OO help through forums seem better)

***If so then I will try to use this to get a better grasp on Linux in general.

I use OpenSuse, 12.x, which on a cursory reading uses libre as a replacement for openoffice and I assume doesn't automatically make it easy to install.

Perhaps I'll need to try another distro.

I'm quite comfortable with KDE for now. Everything in openSuse seems to work well with the computer (except for printer, the printer is supposedly supported and I've tried to follow instructions but have had no luck yet to make it work). The openSuse install is simple but I did have to repeat it a number of times to learn the installation options.

Is there a suggested 'best' distro for OO, (and possibly one that makes the printer install easier (awa playing DVD's)) ?

Ours is on a windoze environment. When large excel files are opened with LO, system hangs and has to be rebooted. File has to be repaired. Never lost a file BUT due to the above reason, we lose about 15 minutes every time we had to open a large file.

OK

Sounds very much like the problem I'm having. The input is from an excel sheet and the copy paste within LO is often large and when doing it quick (it seems) the hang happens. Again a repair is asked for and works but at this stage I just start anew as there's nothing important to loose. Just testing it bit by bit for now.


Thanks for your help.

I suspect this is close to being solved (to my satisfaction, though if anyone wants to write something on how that would be interesting to read.) as per the initial enquiry of what is happening and now I'm on to finding the best alternative to work with.

This is where I'm at now.
I've persisted in working with the problem for now. I was looking into Ubuntu but am hesitant as it appears from what I've read doesn't have root password.

I rebooted and found that the app doesn't open, or rather a shortcut to a sheet doesn't. Instead I get a window with a chopped up image of the start up screen of openSuse. The difference is that I didn't have the internet connection open as in the last couple of days I noted a chopped up image of the browser blinking on before the sheet proper opened. So, I thought I'd try without internet connection open. I tried three times and no luck including a reboot and retry. Then I restarted and connected to the internet and then the sheet opened (with a chopped up image blinking on) and then a pop up:

document file CALC [filename] 201.ods is locked for editing by yourself on a different system [date] {-the 201 I haven't noticed before}
open document read only, or ignore own file locking and open the document for editing.
[buttons] .open read only. .open. .cancel.

I clicked open and it did and everything seems ok.

I have made no changes afa I know.

any ideas?

edit add : does this belong in the newbie or software section. this section seems to be more about social issues. ?

Interesting...

I scrolled the input page and found a http listing in red running downwards on the left seemingly with no cell relationship that I cannot delete except by deleting the page and rebuilding the refs in the calc page.

So that seems to be the cause of the problem though I've no idea why it's happened but I know how to get rid of it.

Now I'd like to know how to make it not happen again. I'll try locking. Perhaps I should lock the whole book but I'd like to readily input without unlocking.

Some sort of filter to disallow the http entry? weird, but perhaps only so because of ignorance.

any ideas?

You should try it on another PC that has Libre office on it see whether the problem persists. If it doesn't then reinstall the suite.

Next try it on Open Office.

OK

With the risk of going off-topic

You might have misinterpreted what you've read. Ubuntu has a root user, but login is disabled (by default). To do things that require root privileges, Ubuntu uses the sudo mechanism which temporarily elevates a user's privileges (for specified users).

So you don't need to worry, just a different approach and one password less to remember ;)