I worked on the computer (Xubuntu 16.04) in the morning, including trying to get guvcview to record video. (I couldn't get the video to work.) Then I left the computer for several hours. When I came back and opened an .odt file in LO it said it was corrupted. Then I found it said the same thing when I went to open several other .odt files. Then I noticed that ~lock files were still around for the files I was opening even after I closed them, but deleting the lock files made no difference. Then it started saying: 'Document file is locked for editing by unknown user.' Then it said (via pop-up windows): 'LO could not save info. due to insufficient disk space at /home/gregory/.config/libreoffice/4/user/backup.' So I went there but there were only two small files. Then I couldn't take screenshots. Then I couldn't open LO at all. And then it started working properly again.

So I guess something weird was happening in the computer overall. (I was going to reboot it but I had one killer valuable file open that I was afraid of losing and then, like I said, things straightened out.) I changed nothing in LO to cause any of this stuff.

It made me want to know more about my permissions on the .odt files. Most of my files' permissions look like screenshot 19. But some look like screenshot 20.

I confess my ignorance about this. I have never set permissions on .odt files so I don't even know how they're different. I'm the only one who works on them. I don't share them with anyone. So I guess they've worked properly because I am the owner and my access is 'read & write.' But I don't know what my 'group' signifies. And how some of the files got 'none' and others had 'read & write' and 'read only' and what the difference and significance between those is. Like if I took the file like in #19 and worked on it on someone else's computer would it work or would I need to make "others" 'read & write'?

I know this a long post but this was major trauma for me. Thanks.

Attached Thumbnails

   

I would start by looking to see what guvcview was doing when it misbehaved. You have an error message saying that at one point the partition where /home/gregory/.config/libreoffice/4/user/backup resides was full. Did guvcview fill up that partition thus causing problems with Libreoffice files when no space was available to write new inode information (and perhaps much later Linux finally recovered the space)? Check the trash for that partition. Run fsck against that partition.

I would start investigating Libreoffice permissions only after I had cleared guvcview of any wrongdoing. On my Linux Mint system the permissions for Libreoffice files are set as a system default for all user files:
owner: read-write
group: read only
others: read only

--------------------
Steve Stites

1 members found this post helpful.

Check your disk space:

1 members found this post helpful.

Thanks jail. I guess that could've happened with the guvcview. I ripped off five or six videos in a row and was having trouble with the sound and couldn't get the video to work. Now that I think about it that really could've been it. I'm not on that computer but will check it as soon as I get on it.

Question: what does the "group" refer to?

Thanks Awesome. Will run that as soon as I get back on that computer.

In Linux you can create groups of users. This is a way to give some users specific privileges and deny the privileges to others. For example, suppose a few people are working on a sales proposal and Bill is the project manager. Bill creates some directories and files for the paperwork being generated for the proposal. Bill gives himself read and write permissions for these files and directories. Bill creates a group called bigdeal and gives bigdeal group read and write permissions for these files. Bill assigns every user working on the proposal in the group bigdeal. Then Bill denies all other users read and write permissions to the proposal files.

Thus Bill has let all of the bigdeal proposal team have free access to the proposal documents while denying access to anybody else.

You could use a similar scheme to allow some, but not all, users access to a dial-out internet line. Or you could allow users access to a printer on their floor in the office but not to printers on other floors.

In your case your distribution has set up a group called gregory probably with only gregory as a member and set gregory as the group name for all of user gregory's files. You could include your wife as a member of gregory so you two could share files but not include your kids.

-------------------------------------
Steve Stites

1 members found this post helpful.

Thank you so much for the great explanation.