Issue 51026

Greetings 'ajanak', I gather you are not only playing with the bug tracking
system. If so we should move this issue to the appropriate component.

hi ajanak, 
thanks for supporting OpenOffice.org and reporting this issue.

Please give more info about the problem such as:
- are you using mapped drives or UNC-paths
- samba version
- could the files be accessd by other windows applications 

and most important (as st pointed out):
Is this a real issue or did you file it for testing issuezilla?

ok .. confirming with m110, german localized build. 
Desktop system is Win98, it doesn't matter, if the files are on a samba or
windeos share. OOo is unable to fint the files, if they are accesed via UNC paths.

@ajanak: as workaround, use mapped drives. This would work.

add. info: 
this seems to be *win98 only*, UNC paths work well on WinXP

*** Issue 51760 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***

*** Issue 44563 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***

This would be a bad regression compared with 1.1.4 and make OOo 2.0 unusable for
many network users , so I recommend urgently to fix that for 2.0

In issue 44563 and issue 51760 you find further detailled hints that help to
find the reasons for that problem.

May be study of issue 5149 can be helpful?

Related to issue 19287?

There is a workaround (at least for WIN networks) that solves the problem.

I did several successful tests after I established a "Net drive assembly" ((?)
from german: "Netzlaufwerk") on the WIN 98 PC, so we can reduce priority.

TM->HRO: Reproducible in a m116 build.

I have the same problem. I've loaded OpenOffice on a Linux box, using Gnome 
Desktop on Debian. I can log onto our network and browse, using the file 
browser, to the file. However, when I double-click, I get the "[file pathname] 
does not exist" error.  
 
Interestingly, I can open .xls files, but not .doc files.  
 
Notably, when I invoke the Open command from within OpenOffice Writer, it 
doesn't show me the network drives.  
 
I'm a Linux newbie. Our company is considering migrating most of our machines 
to Linux, and I'm the tester. I've never used Linux before yesterday. 
 
Thanks.  

*** Issue 44346 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***

.

.

*** Issue 57301 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***

verified with OOo 2.0.1 final on win98 -> close

*** Issue 56086 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***

Issue is not fixed -- it is reproducable in OOo 2.0.4

Update: In OOo Calc it also affects links to cells in another file.
E.g.: ='file://server/directory/file.sxc'#$'sheet'.P21

No data from these links are updated.

Reopening because 2.2RC1 still exhibits the problem  - see 
http://qa.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=74820

Dear developers,
if I can be of any help please let me know.

*** Issue 74820 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***

Accepted.

The target is obviously wrong

Dear developers,
any progress with this one?
Thanks a lot.

*** Issue 34896 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***

*** Issue 23794 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***

*** Issue 76442 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***

*** Issue 56581 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***

target 3.0

Hopefully this will be fixed for 3.0

Win 9x/ME support will be dropped for OOo 3.0

We might fix this on 2.x if there will be a future micro release.

*** Issue 72031 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***

So after 3 years of keeping this regression open it is decided to not fix it, 
despite the fact that our users will still use Win98.
How nice.

I understand that some users may be frustrated. But after 10 years Win98 is
somehow outdated.

If this issue really is that important, perhaps someone from the community might
fix this issue.

Good news - bad news .....

The good news - this may be fixed now in 2.3.  (I have not had time to test it
properly on all platforms.)

The bad news - it is not a win98 issue.  On platforms as recent as XP and Ubuntu
Feisty, earlier versions of OOo fail where all other applications succeed -
namely opening files on CIFS named paths to Samba on Linux.

The good news - we did something differently on 2.3 so presumably a developer
somewhere has tried to fix it.  2.3 seems to work on Gutsy.  I have a half term
break coming up and I'll try to check it out on 98, XP and Vista.

Hennes,
apparently we are going to have 2.x microrelease.
Could we resolve this issue?

set target 2.4.1

Will only be fixed for OOo 2.x if someone finds it necessary and has the time to
fix.

Just to emphasize, in spite of the details at the top of the page:
1.  This is not only a Win98 issue - the same problem has been reported with XP
and Linux.
2.  It is not only a problem with NT-based servers - I tested with a Win98
server, and had the same problem, and also with SAMBA.
3.  This is very annoying for some people :)

There is still a problem.
Confusing - at home, ubuntu client OOo2.3 and now 2.4 will open files by
clicking on a samba-browsed icon on a Debian Linux (Etch) server.   This is the
target behaviour exhibited by nearly every application I use - and most notably
Adobe Acrobat.   So far so good.

At school, neither OOo version works like that - on Windows 2003 server or Linux
(old Mandrake or Debian Etch).  And that is irrespective of whether the client
is Ubuntu (Feisty - not yet risked upgrading to Heron) or XPpro (not yet risked
Vista)

One word of caution - the number of combinations of client, server, OOo version
and opening method has not been systematically tested at school (limited
opportunity) and at one stage (under battle conditions!) I thought it was
working.  Sadly the effect was not reproducible.

But Adobe always works.

The only known generic difference between the home network and the school
network is loading.  The intention is for the two to be as similar to one
another as possible so that my own development work can be piloted at home then
safely ported in.

Hence my puzzlement.  I may have an unwitting config difference (but I think
not) or we may have a timing problem ....

Meanwhile, for staff and pupils, OOo has this user hostile feature that
encourages users to keep their data on the desktop or in my documents, relying
on their roaming profiles to sort everything.   With 1000 users randomly
choosing one of 250 wireless laptops, every laptop would end up with potentially
everything on it - and out of disk space!

And wireless logging on of 60 users in two adjacent classrooms with massive user
profiles would be impossible.

So in spite of my belief that our teaching should as far as possible be vendor
neutral, I cannot recommend OOo for widespread use.  I merely make it available
to pupils whose family circumstances indicate they need it at home.

This really is a significant useability issue for workplace adoption.

You are confusing things here. This issue is about opening files using *UNC path
names* on Windows 9x. This is a very Windows specific problem and examples with
Linux clients are something completely different. Please keep them separated.
The more an issue is filled up with irrelevant data the bigger the chance that
noone ever will want to read the content.

Why would not somebody just close WONTFIX this issue instead of keeping it 
open?!
That would be at least honest.

mba:
quote - You are confusing things here. - end quote

I observe that as a user of both XPpro and ubuntu clients, I see consistent
behaviour on the school network when failing to open files on Linux Samba
servers by clicking on browsed icons.
It is an OOo feature, not an OOo-on Windows feature, since it is evident in the
MS-free zone of Debian server and Ubuntu client.
In all the same situations, if I replace OOo with Adobe Acrobat the problem goes
away.  IMHO that makes it a cross platform issue for OOo.

For my personal purposes, the work-around is to export all my documentation to
PDF format (no hardship for what I publish) then everything works for everybody
who needs to see (but not to change) my material.

But OOo as a working tool for pupils to replace MsOffice is not viable for the
earlier reasons.

On MS clients an alternative work around is to use mapped drives, and some more
competent users can and do occasionally use this route - but there is no real
point to the hassle.  

Ubuntu does not even have the concept of the mapped drive.  

Please don't think of this as a Microsoft Only problem.  In a Samba-server based
environment it hurts Linux users too.   

If you really do believe OOo has two separate bugs responsible for this
cross-platform behaviour, I will raise a separate issue.  But sooner or later I
suspect it will be Duped by somebody and we will all be back here together again!

Chris

there is an issue for version 3.0, which isn't supported for Win98
It is issue 53184

.