Issue 95411 - Multiple Instance Open Office Crash...
Summary: Multiple Instance Open Office Crash...
Status: CLOSED IRREPRODUCIBLE
Alias: None
Product: Installation
Classification: Application
Component: code (show other issues)
Version: OOO300m1
Hardware: PC (x86_64) Linux, all
: P2 Trivial (vote)
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: steffen.grund
QA Contact: issues@installation
URL:
Keywords: needmoreinfo
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2008-10-24 12:59 UTC by jasper2000
Modified: 2009-06-22 12:42 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

See Also:
Issue Type: DEFECT
Latest Confirmation in: ---
Developer Difficulty: ---


Attachments
Strace Output for the Open Office process (27.13 KB, text/plain)
2008-10-24 13:17 UTC, jasper2000
no flags Details

Note You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this issue.
Description jasper2000 2008-10-24 12:59:23 UTC
I have installed two instances of Open Office 3.0.0 on Linux machine. The 
instances get killed after sometime. (This was not happening when i was running 
a single instance of Open Office earlier).

Installation Steps for the second instance were as metioned in SETUP_GUIDE.pdf
(page 46/47), the steps are:

Linux
1. Open a new shell or terminal.
2. Change to the directory where all the rpm packages are. (e.g..
/tmp/openoffice/rpm)
3. Choose the location where to install the extra version of Openoffice.org. 
For example
into the directory /home/user1/office
4. Install the new version in a manner similar to the following:
5. rpm -ivh --install --dbpath /home/user1/office/.rpm --nodeps --
prefix /home/user1/office/ openoffice*.rpm
Note: When you install the office in this way you have no system integration 
(no start menu entries and no
file association)
6. After installation has completed, change to the new directory and do the 
following:
Open the file bootstrap.ini in a editor such as vi and change the line
UserInstallation=$SYSUSERCONFIG/.openoffice.org2
to
UserInstallation=$SYSUSERCONFIG/.openoffice.org2_dutch
or any other directory you want.
7. Once installation is complete, Start this new installation of OpenOffice.org 
from the directory where it was installed. e.g.
/home/user1/office/program/soffice

One point to note above is that there is no bootstrap.ini, instead there is a 
bootstraprpc file. There too is is not clear what should be mentioned in 
UserInstallation=<value> here; nevertheless i mentioned something.

I am able to start both instances together without any problems, even able to 
use them (by connecting to them from my java program to convert docs).

But after sometime (maybe 30 mins, but it varies), one or both instances get 
killed.

I did a strace on the soffice(second instance) by using this command:
strace -t -o strace.out /opt/openoffice.org3/program/soffice -headless -
accept="socket,host=n.n.n.n,port=8100;urp;" -nofirststartwizard &

A part of this strace is pasted below:

1. 05:57:53 rt_sigprocmask(SIG_BLOCK, [CHLD], [], 8) = 0
2. 05:57:53 rt_sigaction(SIGINT, {0x8075dc0, [], SA_RESTORER, 0x420277b8}, 
{SIG_DFL}, 8) = 0
3. 05:57:53 wait4(-1, [WIFSIGNALED(s) && WTERMSIG(s) == SIGKILL], 0, NULL) = 
23905
4. 06:19:00 open("/usr/share/locale/locale.alias", O_RDONLY) = 3
5. 06:19:00 fstat64(3, {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=2601, ...}) = 0
6. 06:19:00 mmap2(NULL, 4096, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_ANONYMOUS, -
1, 0) = 0x4001c000

If you see line 3. above, it appears that there was a SIGKILL for process 
23905, which was the soffice process.

Infact both the soffice instances (one was started on port 8100, and other on 
9100), got killed together.

The linux version is follows:
#uname -r
2.4.20-8smp
Comment 1 jasper2000 2008-10-24 13:17:30 UTC
Created attachment 57434 [details]
Strace Output for the Open Office process
Comment 2 Olaf Felka 2008-10-24 13:18:11 UTC
It's a little bit confusing. You are using OOo 3? What bootstraprc are you
changing? 'UserInstallation=$SYSUSERCONFIG/.openoffice.org2' is about OOo 2.x.
Did you ghet the crash too when you don't use the headless mode?
Comment 3 jasper2000 2008-10-25 09:38:23 UTC
Actually i copied(and followed) the install instructions from Open Office 2x 
Setup Guide, which is available here:

http://documentation.openoffice.org/setup_guide2/2.x/en/SETUP_GUIDE.pdf (pls 
see page 46/47 here). Cannot find equivalent multi-instance install 
instructions for Open Office 3x. So, I've assumed that setup instructions are 
valid for 3x too.

I am indeed using Open Office 3.0
Also i am using the headless mode always, and start Open Office by using the 
following command:

# /opt/openoffice.org3/program/soffice -headless -
accept="socket,host=<myIPHere>,port=8100;urp;" -nofirststartwizard &

I connect to it from my java program do doc conversions. 
Comment 4 Olaf Felka 2008-10-27 10:17:10 UTC
Did you get the crash when you don't use the headless mode? BTW: OOo 3 uses
"UserInstallation=$SYSUSERCONFIG/.openoffice.org/3" as default for the user
folders. What Linux do you use?
Comment 5 jasper2000 2008-11-19 10:06:23 UTC
The problem was resolved - by rebooting the machine :) - discovered accidently 
ofcourse. 

It appears that after installing the second instance of OO on a machine, both 
instances become unstable (saw this behavior on many machines). The hardware 
must be rebooted once (after installing the second instance) - to resolve the 
issue. 

(Requesting this forum administrator to change the bug status to an appropriate 
one - maybe Open office folks can confirm this behavior, and add it to release 
notes or do a fix - if they can replicate it too)
Comment 6 Olaf Felka 2008-11-19 10:17:37 UTC
Having two instances of OOo installed is not a common use case.
Comment 7 Olaf Felka 2008-11-19 10:22:07 UTC
closing
Comment 8 jasper2000 2008-11-19 10:34:58 UTC
Just to cite a reason why multiple instances of Open Office become necessary - 

Open Office does not handle multiple documents processing well(this has been 
documented in many discussion threads too) - infact OO crashes when mutiple 
documents are processed simultaneously. Therefore, if one wants to process (say 
convert from one format to another etc.) multiple files simultaneously (in 
headless mode), you need mulitple instances of Open office to work with.
Comment 9 Olaf Felka 2008-11-19 11:03:54 UTC
@ sg: Do you have any information about "OO crashes when mutiple 
documents are processed simultaneously"?
Comment 10 jasper2000 2008-11-19 12:15:20 UTC
Sorry to jump in... you may want to take a look at this thread of discussion 
about OOs multi-thread issues (this remains a unresolved problem): 

http://www.oooforum.org/forum/viewtopic.phtml?
t=2913&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0
Comment 11 Olaf Felka 2008-11-19 12:24:12 UTC
reopened for further investigation.
Comment 12 Olaf Felka 2008-11-19 12:24:57 UTC
reassigned
Comment 13 steffen.grund 2008-12-10 13:50:52 UTC
As a general idea: you can start one OpenOffice.org installation several times
with different user installations. Every started user instance is usable for
whatever purpose you decide, so there's really no need to install the same
Office multiple times. The multi-thread issue does not apply then.

When you say, one or both get killed after some time, you cannot reproduce the
crash with only one started Office? And what exactly do you let the Offices do
when the crash happens? Could it be one of the documents?
I do not really think that both installations communicate with each other, and I
cannot reproduce the behavior with a simple setting.
Comment 14 jasper2000 2008-12-11 04:45:11 UTC
Didn't quite understand:
"you can start one OpenOffice.org installation several times
with different user installations"

Pls note, there are two issues here. Unrelated to each other.

(A)

Multiple Open Office were installed as per Open Office documentation available 
here:
http://documentation.openoffice.org/setup_guide2/2.x/en/SETUP_GUIDE.pdf 
Pls see: see page 46/47.

As stated earlier, the multiple open office installs "works fine" - after 
rebooting the hardware. So this is not an issue anymore.
The need for multiple instances arose because of the problem cited in (B) below.

(B)
A single Open Office instance cannot process multiple documents simultaneously.

Discussed in much detail in this discussion thread:
http://www.oooforum.org/forum/viewtopic.phtml?
t=2913&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

This problem can be reproduced by using a program like java to connect to open 
office and try to convert docs from one format to another. If many docs are 
attempted to be converted simultaneously, OO crashes. I am able to reproduce 
this problem fairly consistently.
Comment 15 steffen.grund 2008-12-11 11:12:10 UTC
OK, I did indeed not understand correctly. But regarding (B): if you create user
installations and ports for attaching, you do not need to install the same
office multiple times:
start
<your_office>/soffice -env:UserInstallation=file://<file_url1> -accept=<socket1>
and
<your_office>/soffice -env:UserInstallation=file://<file_url2> -accept=<socket2>
then you have two user installations that can be connected. You should not try
to use one connection with several processes, agreed. But this will work fine
with only one installed office.
Comment 16 jasper2000 2008-12-17 04:54:50 UTC
sg,
Not sure if you are suggesting anything different from what is suggested here 
about how to install and run multiple OO instances: (which is what i used):

http://documentation.openoffice.org/setup_guide2/2.x/en/SETUP_GUIDE.pdf 
Pls see: see page 46/47.

And i start individual Open Office instance as follows:

Start first OO instance:
/opt/openoffice.org3/program/soffice -headless -
accept="socket,host=locahost,port=8100;urp;" -nofirststartwizard &

Start second OO instance:
/opt/Openoffice-1/openoffice.org3/program/soffice -headless -
accept="socket,host=localhost,port=9100;urp;" -nofirststartwizard &

Comment 17 steffen.grund 2008-12-17 14:26:46 UTC
I am fairly sure that I suggested somethig very different from your approach: my
point was that you do not have to install two individual OpenOffice.org
installations. Throw away /opt/Openoffice-1 and use two user instances instead
of OOo installations.

Execute this for the first connectable OOo instance:
/opt/openoffice.org3/program/soffice -env:UserInstallation=file:///var/tmp/user1
-headless -accept="socket,host=locahost,port=8100;urp;" -nofirststartwizard &

Execute this for the second connectable OOo instance:
/opt/openoffice.org3/program/soffice -env:UserInstallation=file:///var/tmp/user2
-headless -accept="socket,host=localhost,port=9100;urp;" -nofirststartwizard &

Now you use only one OOo installation. 
Comment 18 steffen.grund 2009-06-22 12:40:32 UTC
orginal bug is not reproducible.
Comment 19 steffen.grund 2009-06-22 12:42:02 UTC
.
Comment 20 steffen.grund 2009-06-22 12:42:32 UTC
closing issue.