OpenOffice stops responding when trying to save

[JUST help me please]

Running OpenOffice 4.1.7 on Mac Monterey 12.6.3 and whatever previous version of Monterey I had about 45 minutes ago. Word document would not save, Mac had it as "Not Responding" requiring a forced quit. Tried updated to the newest iOS but I still cannot save without it crashing. I tried up updated OpenOffice manually and get "Checking for an update failed, Error reading data from the Internet.Server error message: ." including that last period.

I tried "Saving as" and got one version saved but now cannot do that either. What is going on?

[MrProgrammer]

I tried up updated OpenOffice manually and get "Checking for an update failed, Error reading data from the Internet.Server error message: ."

The update check may be the source of your problem. Try to disable it.
Issue 128535 MacOS: Application crashes 30 seconds after opening if "check for automatic updates" is turned on
Q50: The automatic updates feature is not working. How do I fix it?
Deactivate Automatic Updates

Word document would not save

We believe that Microsnot deliberately makes trouble for people who want to use documents created by Word unless they buy that product. You could try LibreOffice, which may handle this file format better.
Q55: Why can't I open the "new" Microsoft formats, DOCX/XLSX/PPTX?
Q59: Can I exchange documents between OpenOffice and iWork, Apple's office suite?

If this solved your problem please go to your first post use the Edit button and add [Solved] to the start of the Subject field. Select the green checkmark icon at the same time.

[JUST help me please]

Mr. Programmer, thank you, I"ll try to deactivate the auto updates, but by "Word" document I just mean the OpenOffice word document, not the spreadsheet, etc. features. This is a regular odt file I've had for a while, I guess it's called Writer.

I disabled that auto update feature but I still get the same error message when trying to manually update. And the program keeps crashing when I try to save this document!

[John_Ha]

Mac had it as "Not Responding" requiring a forced quit.

That is not a crash - it is a hang. A crash is where the program stops running and the AOO window disappears. A hang is where the window stays open but it stops responding.

Crashes and hangs have different causes and different solutions.

1. Can you do a test save to the desktop?

2. Check MacOS and / or the AntiVirus software are allowing AOO to write to your disk.

It will help others if you edit your subject line in your first post to "Open Office stops responding when trying to save" as it is not crashing.

[JUST help me please]

I can open the document and save it unchanged to the desktop. I can type a few words and save this to the desktop as well. But once I type in more (include some bulleted items) it will hang up and require force quitting. I'm not sure how to check if MocOS is allowed to write to my disk - I've changed nothing since this started this morning!

Mac had it as "Not Responding" requiring a forced quit.

That is not a crash - it is a hang. A crash is where the program stops running and the AOO window disappears. A hang is where the window stays open but it stops responding.

Crashes and hangs have different causes and different solutions.

1. Can you do a test save to the desktop?

2. Check MacOS and / or the AntiVirus software are allowing AOO to write to your disk.

It will help others if you edit your subject line in your first post to "Open Office stops responding when trying to save" as it is not crashing.

[RoryOF]

When you type the few words, is that in a new document or an existing document? Can you make a new document, then type dt and press F3 key to get some automatic text. Can this document now be Saved to your Desktop? One should always have permissions to Save to one's Desktop - not an ideal location, but helpful for diagnostics.

[John_Ha]

I can open the document and save it unchanged to the desktop. I can type a few words and save this to the desktop as well.

So you can write a changed file to disk so it isn't a "AOO not allowed to write to disk" problem. The problem happens when you do more edits.

Download this .odt file.

1. Can you do many edits and save it to the desktop?

2. If you can save it to the desktop, can you save it somewhere else too?

[JUST help me please]

I can open this file, edit it, save it numerous times to my desktop and elsewhere with (so far) no problem. I tried copying and pasting the file that's hanging up AOO into a new document and saving with a new name but that had the same effect. I can type in just a few words and save it updated with no issue. But too much text and I can't save it anymore.

This file is ~225 pages long, has some pictures, tables and graphs. Has it hit some wall and perhaps I need to break it into two files? But why am I still not able to update AOO from within the program? Should I just download the newest version and start fresh?

I can open the document and save it unchanged to the desktop. I can type a few words and save this to the desktop as well.

So you can write a changed file to disk so it isn't a "AOO not allowed to write to disk" problem. The problem happens when you do more edits.

Download this .odt file.

1. Can you do many edits and save it to the desktop?

2. If you can save it to the desktop, can you save it somewhere else too?

[RoryOF]

In your troublesome file, have you many lines of text defined by pressing Shift Enter at the end? If you select /View /non printing characters, you will see Paragraphs marked by a backwards P character (recte: a Pilcrow), tabs by a right pointing arrow; spaces by a raised dot, and line breaks (Shift Enter) by a left pointing hooked arrow.

This non printing character display does not print, and can be deselected by the same command.

[Hagar Delest]

Else, try LibreOffice.

[robleyd]

why am I still not able to update AOO from within the program

AOO doesn't 'update' that way; the Check for Updates is just that - a check to let you know if there is a later version available. This check was broken in earlier versions of AOO until a few versions ago.

Should I just download the newest version and start fresh?

This is the normal AOO process to upgrade your AOO version. Make sure you read the Mac section of Instructions for Downloading and Installing Apache OpenOffice 4.0, 4.1 Versions