Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 88600
MS Terminal Services with shared windows usernames
Last modified: 2013-01-29 21:41:15 UTC
We recently installed Open Office 2.4 on two of our site servers. The install went well, but we have run into an issue with opening files. We have multiple users that use a generic windows account on the terminal server (ie sales). If I log in as sales and there are a few other people logged in as sales when I open documents they will sometimes open in other peoples sessions, and not mine. I know that I installed the App as a terminal Services app using the Add/Remove programs. I have never had this issue with other applications. I have been told that if I disable the quickstarter that will resolve the issue. I have disabled the quick starter and this does appear to have fixed it. I hope I have given enough information for this bug.
AFAIK OOo is not designed to work like this. OOo writes a lock file at office start. This lock file tracks who is using the office. If multiple users with under one account want to use the office the user who has opened the session is the 'owner' of the running office. @ oc: Is this something that we can do with OOo 3.x?
As OF already wrote we do not support your scenario. The reason is that there can only be one instance of the office application working on the configuration layer at a time. So if you run multiple instances your application appears on a random display, usually the the display that belongs to the first instance. This has rarely ever been a problem so far (though reported 3 or four times in the past). Mostly the issue was resolved by creating real users for everyone. Please see if this is an option for you. Multiple people using the same account simultaneously is very likely to cause other weird sideeffects. Setting this issue to WontFix
I'm closing the issue for now. If you're not happy with my explanation you might reopen it at any time.
test
Hi, We are looking at deploying OO within our organisation. I've been doing a fair amount of searching on the forums and it looks like this is still an issue, and from testing I've done it also occurs on OO 3.0. I can understand what your saying in your below description, however I'm hoping I can convince you to have another look. Shared user accounts are more common in a windows environment. In our situation we are a hospital, and it is unreasonable to expect 8 nurses, and several doctors to log in/out of a several PCs on a ward. Instead, they use a generic login in, which is the ward name, and then login to the patient care application they use as a unique user. This also occurs in emergency and the theatres. Its also where OO would be perfect to be deployed, as these are users who are not power users, all they need is basic office apps, so retraining is not a major issue. I would suggest, that to get OO into more enterprise organisations fixing this issue would be a great asset. Is there any way we could use a session ID parameter in combination with the lock file, as I would assume TS (or citrix) would have such an ID which could be pulled from the environment. We could also assit with testing, as we have several test citrix servers. Thanks for your time. Regards Miles Roper West Coast DHB New Zealand.
As a workaround I found that disabling the quickstart feature appears to have resolved this. I am not certain that it actually fixes the problem, or the users are not using the program to the same extent they once were. But I stopped receiving complaints about the strange behaviour when I disabled the quick start.
I tried this as well (as I read something similar), I disabled the option in the options menu, confirmed no "quickstart.exe" was running in taskmanager and tried using the same user logged into two seperate sessions, same deal, OO Writer would open on random sessions, sometimes the right one, sometimes not. I haven't restarted the server however, but as quickstart.exe isn't running i'm assuming this isn't required. any other thoughts?
hi, just something I wanted to add. I'm an Open Source advocate from way back, I use to be the lead developer in an OS project called Thinstation, however work keeps me busy enough as it is now. What really interests me is our organisation giving MS the boot, and if our organisation can do it, others in the health sector within NZ would see a path which wasn't so MS centric. For you this issue may seem minor, but its quite a major issue to solve to gain a foot hold in NZ health. Really hoping you guys can have a look at this. As mentioned, happy to help where i can (ie testing, feedback etc...) Regards Miles Manager, Information Technology West Coast DHB
@ cd: Is it possible to give usable solution for such cases?
cd: I must confess that I don't know the Citrix/TS environment well. If there is a way to retrieve something like a "session ID" there would be a unlovely workaround possible. We could extend the placeholder mechanism to add the "session ID" to the user folder path. That would guarantee that every session has it's own user folder. The big drawback would be that over the time many user folders would be created. They would eat a lot of disk space. That also means that changes made by a user could be lost when he/she gets a new "session ID" on the next Citrix/TS login. So this would be a "bad" solution but I don't know how to fix this without demanding unique logins by every user.
Hi Cd, Yeah, I think there is, from the Citrix server I'm on at the moment, from session 1 as mroper: SESSIONNAME=ICA-tcp#57991 From session 2 as mroper: SESSIONNAME=ICA-tcp#56850 Terminal services deals with it slightly differently SESSIONNAME=RDP-Tcp#32 so it would seem feasible. To prevent issues with eating disk space, would it be possible to keep the way you do it at the moment (one user folder) but if you detect the presence of the above environment variables, copy this profile to the session ID user, then when the person closes the application, it moves it back to the master copy. The idea being, who ever last closes the application gets to keep their settings. Another possibility, would be similar how to Citrix/TS generally works. The last person to logout using the same username keeps there settings, as the last profile overwrites the others. You could do something simialar by if you detect the presence of the environment variable, and a flag is set in the users home folder, then copy the profile to the citrix temporary profile storage area. This is cleared upon logout. If the flag is not set in the persons home folder, but the environment variable is set, then this means its the first person to login so just go as normal. When you logout delete the flag. Makes sense? Any of it feasible? Cheers Miles
cd: I think your first propose solution would be easier to implement. Even using this part would need many changes in the current startup/shutdown code. Locking must be taken into consideration as it would be possible that one Office copies the current user data while another user closes the Office and it wants to write back data. I would guess that at least two weeks of work would be needed to accomplish this. I and the framework team are very busy with other important tasls. Therefore we would need to find a volunteer to implement this feature request. May be you know a student or some other developer. He/she would get support from the framework team. cd: I reopen this issue as it makes sense to support this kind of work environment. No guarantee that this request will be implemented in the near future.
cd: I take over and accept this issue.
cd: Set to accepted.
Hi Cd, Thats great. I don't know any students but may have an idea, will let you know if something eventuates. Regards miles
Is anything going on with this?
cd->kanderson8281: No. I as wrote some months ago: "We need a volunteer who wants to work on this issue." Currently we have nobody who can do the work. May be you know a student or someone who wants to work on this enhancement. I am definitely not able to work on this enhancement.