LIbreOffice stopped saving files

**kurt18947** · February 5th, 2013

I just tried creating a simple two sentence .odt file and saving it in my 'pictures' folder. It saved and opened correctly. I'm using 12.10 gnome remix and L.O. 3.6.6.2.2 Build I.D. 360m1(build:2)). Just to check for config problems, could you create another user account and try to reproduce the misbehavior in that account? If you're trying to save to user created folders, I'd wonder about folder permissions.

**Snapcase** · February 5th, 2013

No way. Just into the Documents folder.

Wait. now not even in de Docs folder.

Gonna try a different user.

**Snapcase** · February 5th, 2013

It works perfectly well in a different user account. Permissions issues as expected...

What can I do now?

**kurt18947** · February 5th, 2013

Originally Posted by Snapcase

It works perfectly well in a different user account. Permissions issues as expected...

What can I do now?

I'm am certainly no expert. It's good news that creating a new user account fixed your problem. I think that means the problem lies somewhere in the problem user's home folder. I poked around my /home folder and found this:

/home/.config/libreoffice/3/user

There are 15 folders plus one .xcu file. I would probably backup any data files in the /home directory before doing much else. I know in firefox I can delete the .config folder and firefox will create another on its next startup. I don't know if LibreOffice would do the same or not. You could experiment on your newly created user account that presumably contains nothing of value. If Libreoffice totally pukes, delete the newly created account and no harm done.

If LibreOffice will create a new folder, you can backup any custom dictionaries and the like, delete to problem folder, let LO create a new config folder and restore your preferences. if that doesn't work for whatever reason, would it be a huge hassle to create a new account, move as much as possible from the old user account to a new user account and delete the old? You wouldn't want to move the libreoffice configuration files, obviously. You could also mess around with adding .old file name suffixes to suspect files then retry saving within the problem user account. If that fixes your problem, you could delete the files with .old suffixes since they were recreated without the problematic content. Again, I'm no expert but these are things I'd try in your situation.

This probably goes without saying but I'll say it anyway. If you have any important data such as documents, photos, financial records, make sure you have backups that you can read and restore.

**Snapcase** · February 6th, 2013

Bingo!

I moved that registrymodifications.xcu file to a different directory and launched LibreOffice. It instantly created a new one and now it works as it should.

That's like in the old times when I was a ProTools user. You have to delete the preferences file from time to time when weird things start to happen. Lesson (re)learnt!

Thank you!

**Snapcase** · February 6th, 2013

Damnit... it's back if I directly launch the writer.

**Snapcase** · February 6th, 2013

It's not exactly that. It gets screwed up if I try to save anything in the Downloads folder. Then the permissions problems starts and from that point it's impossible to save anything anywhere. If I delete the registrymodifications.xcu file it gets solved. Then if I try to save anything in Downloads, all this mess starts again.

**kurt18947** · February 6th, 2013

Originally Posted by Snapcase

It's not exactly that. It gets screwed up if I try to save anything in the Downloads folder. Then the permissions problems starts and from that point it's impossible to save anything anywhere. If I delete the registrymodifications.xcu file it gets solved. Then if I try to save anything in Downloads, all this mess starts again.

Hooo boy! Maybe spend some time on LibreOffice.org -> get help? If you save something in /Downloads from Firefox or another browser and that causes problems with LibreOffice, I would have no idea. Would it be a huge PITA to delete that user account? That's presuming a new account would not have the same issues.

Edit: I had another thought though this may be an example of fools rushing where angels fear to tread

. Delete the registrymodifications.xcu, open Libreoffice and let it recreate the file then close LibreOffice and immediatly change that file's permissions to read only. I have NO clue if that'd work or not but to paraphrase Thomas Edison "I have not failed, I have only discovered yet another way that does not work."