LibreOffice Impress Crash When Pressing LaTeX
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#198 LibreOffice Impress Crash When Pressing LaTeX
The crash issue appears when using Impress (I do not use Writer). I managed to reproduce the crash on Mac and Linux. Here is how to do it:
- Set TexMaths preferences for Impress to LaTeX , Transparency, 28 points, SVG
- Open LibreOffice Impress with a blank presentation
- Delete all the text boxes (for title and text)
- Create a LaTeX text anywhere using TexMaths
- Create a new Slide and Delete all the text boxes
- Copy-paste the previous LaTeX text image to the new slide
- Edit the LaTeX text in the new slide with TexMaths
- Impress should crash when clicking LaTeX
It saves a lot of time, for example, to copy the title from slide to slide and then edit the LaTeX text. However, with this crash it is not possible. In addition, I lose the new slide after the Impress recovery. So if I am editing an already existing presentation, and I have a crash, I lose the slide that I am working on. This is a big problem!
The slides I work with are currently in PowerPoint and I would like to use LibreOffice Impress instead for, among other things, avoiding format incompatibilities between PowerPoint on Windows and Mac, and to allow the colleagues that work with Linux to join the project.
I would greatly appreciate an insight on why this happens and how to fix it, or if you could find a fix for it.
Thank you for your awesome work!
Hi Daniel, thanks for the well detailed bug report.
However, I was not able to reproduce it on Linux, with Ubuntu 24.04.1, LibreOffice 24.8.4.2, TexMaths 0.52.3. I see no crash when following your test steps.
What are your system, LibreOffice and LaTeX versions? Could you try again with a fresh LibreOffice profile?
Last edit: Roland Baudin 2025-01-09
Freshly installed Debian 12.8 (x86_64) with freshly installed LibreOffice 7.4.7.2 / Community (using apt) with TexMaths 0.52.3.
Same version of LibreOffice as above on Raspberry OS on Raspberry Pi 5 with TexMaths 0.49
It also happens with LibreOffice 24.8.3.2 AARCH64 / Community on MacOS with TexMaths 0.52.3.
I just realized I missed the TeXLive versions:
Debian/RaspberryPi OS: TeXLive 2022
On MacOS I treid both TeXLive 2024 from both MacTeX and Homebrew
OK, thanks. The LaTeX version probably does not matter. Did you test with a fresh LibreOffice profile?
It seems that resetting the profile solved the issue on my Mac and the Raspberry Pi for the case I described. However, after performing a few more tests, resetting the profile is irrelevant as the error persists. The way to reproduce it is the following:
It may seem strange, but having images overlap is something that we need to do in some cases. So this is how I came across the crash again in my "production slides", and I was able to reproduce it in both my Mac and Raspberry Pi in a simpler setting. I did not have access to my Debian machine, but I would expect LibreOffice to crash as well.
Last edit: Daniel Balague 2025-01-10
Once again, thanks for the detailed explanations. However, I still can't reproduce the crash (in Ubuntu with the versions I told you). I followed your steps twice, and I see no crash.
Maybe there is some step you do that I don't do in my test?
Let's try to further clarify the steps:
Could you send me your presentation file at the last step before the crash? And the contents of the ~/.config/libreoffice/4/user/TexMaths directory would be also useful.
Thanks!
Thank you for your help with the issue and for being so willing to help.
With regard to your questions,
To reproduce the crash, in my machine, I just need to open the presentation attached, copy the image from the first slide to the second, edit the copied image (which overlaps with the existing one in the second slide) by changing the text. I copy-paste the image with the keyboard shortcuts, and then I just click on the TexMaths equations icon to edit. No other clicks. Then, after changing the text, after clicking LaTeX, Impress crashes.
I also provide a screenshot of the options I have set up for TexMaths. The preamble is the default one, I did not change it.
I hope that, with this information, the error is reproducible for you or that I can provide a better insight.
Thanks again for your help.
OK, now I managed to reproduce the bug! I don't know why I couldn't because I don't see what has change in the steps I do...
Yay! I have not tried it on Windows, but it happens both on Mac and Linux. Let me know if you need further information.
OK, I was able to track down the issue using break points in TexMaths and I found that the problem is in Impress.
In TexMaths, when editing an equation, the old image is cut and the new is pasted. But there is a problem in Impress that breaks this process and is responsible for the crash.
I found a way to reduce the problem to a simple test, without needing TexMaths. Here are the steps:
1) Open the attached test.odp
2) In slide 1, select the image (world), then press Ctrl-C => image is copied to the clipboard
3) Go to slide 2 and press Ctrl-V => slide 1 image (world) is pasted over slide 2 image (person)
4) Still on slide 2, select top image (world) without moving it and press Ctrl-X => image (world) should be cut to clipboard
We can observe that at step4, the whole slide 2 is cut to clipboard instead of simply the top image. This is the bug that makes Impress crash when using TexMaths, because slide 2 has disappeared...
Note that if you move the top image by one pixel (as you already observed) before pressing Ctrl-X, then the issue does not appear. Also, I found that the issue happens with either png or svg images.
Could you check you can reproduce the issue? And then I'll make a bug report to the LibreOffice team.
That explains why in the recovery process the slide I was editing disappeared.
I confirm that I can reproduce the bug with your test case.
Thank you a lot for working on this!
Would you mind sharing, somehow, a bug tracker or mention it somewhere so that I (or we) can know when it is resolved?
Thanks again!
Yes, of course. I'll dot it tomorrow...
Here it is: https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=164675
Thank you! I'll make sure to follow it
Thanks for the comment on the LO bugzilla.
No problem!