[Solved] OpenOffice not starting on Linux Mint Cinnamon

[RoryOF]

A utility called mkusb should do that. A quick search will find a source, I have no doubt.

[White Phoenix]

Linux Mint already had one installed call USB Image Writer, but it had a rather vague description in the menu and software manager. I was doing a search and came across a thread where someone used it to make a bootable USB with persistence. I think my image of Pop was also persistent, but not knowing that, I never tried making any changes like uninstalling LO and installing AOO. :\
Will give a follow up report in this post.
I'm writing this from inside Linux Mint 21.1 on my USB stick. LibreOffice was removed and OpenOffice installed and launched without any problems. Now I still don't understand what the problem is. Considering that I reformatted and re-install 21.1 before on the internal hard drive. Although, on this stick. I didn't bother changing any settings. I just went directly into switching office suites. I didn't even bother to set up Timeshift.
So, if I can start over again, then setup Timeshift before doing anything else. Then remove LibreOffice, install OpenOffice, confirm AOO is working then take a snapshot. I can then go through the settings and test AOO as I go along. There must be one of the settings that interfered with AOO. Once I find it, I can restore to the first snapshot after the re-install. Then setup without using the setting that interfered with AOO. When I find the culprit, I will report back.

[RoryOF]

If OpenOffice is running on the Mint on USB stick, it shows the OO _can_ run on Mint 21. If it doesn't run on your Mint installation on main computer, then the problem is probably caused by some other program installed on the main computer.

A long solution is to back up all data, then reformat main computer, install Mint, install OO, check that OO works. Then install applications one by one, checking that OO works after each application is installed.

A possible shortcut: on main computer, have you reinstalled OpenOffice?

[White Phoenix]

I did reinstall it. However, Mint was changed in version 19. Mint 21 is very buggy compared to Mint 18. Combine that with my computer being completely changed over from legacy to UEFI and now I can’t even boot in consistently. Well, now I can, but I have to re-install the GRUB every time first. I don’t care about whether a system behaves like Windows or not. I just want an OS and applications that make sense and works intuitively. Call me old-fashioned but I was happier with DOS Shell and Works. I like making desktop icons, but I’ll get over it. Also Linux doesn’t use code pages. It uses Unicode throughout.
So now I’m looking for another more stable Linux. Pop! seems okay, but it’s version of software manager is limited, maybe because it only uses Gnome. It might work with other imported packages though. System76 seems to be a new company, maybe they’d be open to finding or creating software that works better and giving up command line software, if they haven’t already. I’ll try Xubuntu next.
That being said. I can re-install OpenOffice easily. I even created a shell routine to install it. Takes about a minute. The one I used for Mint 18 removed the programs I didn’t want and installed the ones I did in about an hour. Linux uses slightly different terms, but it’s a lot like DOS. Linux is also transparent like DOS. No cryptic registry. So you seem to have an idea. One of the main reasons to use OpenOffice right after installing was to create a spreadsheet of packages to install and remove, since Mint was so different now.
I don’t mean to be picky. It might have something to do with my ADHD. I don’t think computer systems were designed with neural divergent people in mind.

[RoryOF]

I go back to pre-dos operating systems, where we were booting a CPU in machine code.

I moved to linux years ago and have never regretted it. After a few months trying different linux distros, I eventually plumped for Xubuntu (currently using 22.04.4 - 22.04.5 possibly releasing today, I believe), which gave me a simple. clean desktop. If I were not using Xubuntu (Xfce desktop) I might be tempted to use Manjaro Xfce, but would have a little relearning to do in the move away from from a DEB based distro.

distrowatch.com gives a running tabulation of most distros and their current popularity, with live links to their sites.

But it is a personal choice; what is right for one person might be wrong for another.

[White Phoenix]

I finally found a tool that actually make persistent live OS on a USB thumb drive that I was able to download and install, Multiboot USB, but it doesn’t work with XUbuntu. Nothing on Linux burns DVDs at all, except Brasero, but that’s only good for slideshows and music collections.
Yes I like DEB files. It’s why I was able to create an install script that installs everything in about an hour. You can’t do that on Windows. I tried with a batch file.

A possible shortcut: on main computer, have you reinstalled OpenOffice?

What were you going to suggest?

[RoryOF]

A possible shortcut: on main computer, have you reinstalled OpenOffice?

What were you going to suggest?

A useful starting point for debugging is to re-install, as the last installation, that application that is giving trouble. A case in point was (long ago) when OpenOffice would sometimes not print: this was often solved by a re-installation of the printer drovers.

[TonyPenny2]

New Linux Mint user, grappling with Apachie OpenOffice refusing to open. Have already tried purging LibreOffice, wiping the system and installing a virgin Linux Mint and purging Libre. Cannot get past the problem of ApachieOO not starting. Presently Apachie and Libre are both purged in hopes of getting a solution to make Apachie OpenOffice work.

[RoryOF]

A useful diagnostic is to start the program in a terminal, and record the error messages. To start an installed OpenOffice, type openoffice4 in a terminal.

[White Phoenix]

A useful starting point for debugging is to re-install, as the last installation, that application that is giving trouble. A case in point was (long ago) when OpenOffice would sometimes not print: this was often solved by a re-installation of the printer drovers.

?? I was logged out while composing my reply? I had to check my files to make sure I gave the correct information. Fine. Starting over.
I have saved logs of my previous installations. However, when installing AOO I didn’t create a log, but then I installed it after installing all of the drivers. So it failed but there is no way to see which driver was the culprit.
So now I will be more careful and log the printer drivers installation separately starting with the drivers installed after the printer is turned on and Linux automatically installs only the drivers needed for that printer. Then run the test routine that creates a log when AOO starts up. Hopefully the drivers to my printer are not the ones at fault.

For anyone else unfamiliar with scripting who wants to create an automatic log for their routines add this code as the first line of the script:
{

For the last line put:
} 2>&1 | tee /<folder path>/<file name>

Obligatory Warning: Where the text between the symbols (<>) are placeholders for the actual path and file.

[TonyPenny2]

I zapped Linux Mint, made a clean install, removed Libre but it was the same issue, Apache OpenOffice just fails to open and there is no indication that it is installed in the Menu, but the installer says that the OO is already installed.

[White Phoenix]

I found the culprit. It wasn’t a driver. It was a folder I had always used on Linux Mint before with no problems. I found out that it wasn’t necessary to install fonts in Linux. All you had to do was keep the fonts you wanted to use in a .fonts folder in your home directory. I copied my fonts folder to my home and OpenOffice wouldn’t open. I deleted the folder and OpenOffice was fine. Now maybe it was one of the fonts in the folder, but that will take more experimentation. Now I have to find a work-around so I can have my fonts easily installed.

[RoryOF]

If you require the older MS fonts. look for ttf-mscorefonts-installer in your distro's repositories.

With regard to your previous posting, After copying your font folder, you might need to run an update on the font cache: run fc-cache in a terminal, as far as I remember.

[Hagar Delest]

Weird! A font that could have such an impact.

[RoryOF]

I think system was confused because the font cache was not updated when the old fonts folder was introduced. That possibly causing OpenOffice to hang while looking for the font needed for its menus.

[White Phoenix]

Weird! A font that could have such an impact.

I think system was confused because the font cache was not updated when the old fonts folder was introduced. That possibly causing OpenOffice to hang while looking for the font needed for its menus.
With regard to your previous posting, After copying your font folder, you might need to run an update on the font cache: run fc-cache in a terminal, as far as I remember.

Never had a problem until after Mint 18, but I will try updating.

[White Phoenix]

Well, scanning my .fonts folder of only 128 fonts didn’t work, but scanning the folder which contains my entire collection of fonts did do something. Not sure if it actually made a difference except when I installed a couple of fonts that didn’t show up in OpenOffice. So the font collection in my Fonts folder works now in OpenOffice although I think it always did anyway. I just can’t keep the fonts I use most in my home folder.

[Hagar Delest]

That possibly causing OpenOffice to hang while looking for the font needed for its menus.

I was thinking of that too but hesitated to ask because I thought it would be unlikely. White Phoenix, have you tweaked some settings to use a custom font for the application "default" font (like menus)? Either in AOO or in the Mint window manager?

Well, scanning my .fonts folder of only 128 fonts didn’t work, but scanning the folder which contains my entire collection of fonts did do something.

What do you mean? Your custom fonts are in your home folder ~/.fonts. What is your other folder with your full collection? And what are those fonts you use the most that you can't put in the home folder?

[TonyPenny2]

Is it being suggested that a Virgin Install of Linux Mint on a newly formatted hard drive requires some adjustment to Fonts in order to allow AOO to Start. I am a new Linux user so these suggestions are difficult to follow. If a new install of Linux Mint does require some adjustments to Font Files I will attempt to investigate the necessary actions.

[RoryOF]

As far as I understand the matter, White Phoenix was importing a .fonts setup from a previous installation, and had not updated the font cache.

I do not think that a fresh installation of Linux Mint on a "standard" system should have any problems.

[RPG]

I did two time a new installation for openSUSE 15.6. The root partition was formatted but I did use the old user. This day I made a new user and ApacheOffice does not work for me. Earlier it did not give problems for me. I did try the version 4.1.15 , 4.2.0 and 4.5.

I now use LibreOffice. It was always on my computer but I find the menus so big for that reason I did use ApacheOffice. So there is no real problem for me.

[White Phoenix]

I was thinking of that too but hesitated to ask because I thought it would be unlikely. White Phoenix, have you tweaked some settings to use a custom font for the application "default" font (like menus)? Either in AOO or in the Mint window manager?

No, I don’t tweak any fonts except for the desktop, but this time I liked the Ubuntu font under the icons, so I left it. Actually, I forgot to tag this thread as solved.

What do you mean? Your custom fonts are in your home folder ~/.fonts. What is your other folder with your full collection? And what are those fonts you use the most that you can't put in the home folder?

I have several external hard drives. On the drive with my collections of static files I have a Fonts folder with about 3,000 fonts that I sometimes use when I want to use a fancier font, or foreign or historical language. Also Linux will install any font in my collection. All I have to do is click on the font and the window pops up displaying a sampling. Then I just click install and it’s done. Everything is working fine except the tabs on the spreadsheet are really small. The type is smaller than 6 point. Its not a problem when the tab is open and has the white background so I can read it. I haven’t seen any setting to fix this. I do think it has something to do with the new monitor.

I don’t think it had anything to do with refreshing the font cache. Everything was back to normal when I deleted the .fonts folder from the home directory.