Xubuntu Libre Office Calc can not open network file

Question

I have newly installed Xubuntu desktop on a computer. I need to work with files on a NAS store (using samba shares). Libre Office can not open them.

• I browse the network in Thunar and see all files. The are recognised as Open Office files (right icon).
• I can copy files to my desktop.
• I can open the files with gedit.
• On double click I see the Libre Office5 splash sceen then then nothing happens. I do not get any error message.
• When I open Libre Office I can browse to the file with the open dialog but after file selection, I am just back to the blank file.
• I can edit the file after copying it to my desktop.

• After uncommemting X-GIO-NoFuse=true in the config file I do get an error when trying to open the file:

  General input/output error while accessing run/user/1000/gvfs/smb-share:server=, share=".

• I have read about a bug to disable /use/share/applications/libroffice-calc.desktop and comment out x-KDE prototocls, but that did not help. The question is Can't open files through the network.

I did not try to mount the network share with fstab, since I need to be able to work with temporary shares in the file manager.

Anyone else having that problem? How can I solve that?

Using Xubunutu 16.04, amd64, kernel 4.4.0.-64-generic.

Answer 1

"I had a similar problem on Ubuntu. Make sure the Libreoffice Gnome integration package is installed. In my case the package was libreoffice-gnome"

https://ask.libreoffice.org/en/question/9549/unable-to-open-files-from-windows-share/?sort=votes#sort-top

Answer 2

This error remains when I use the file managers network browsing function to access an open office file on a share. I still have no idea why it works with gedit and not with open office.

General input/output error while accessing
/run/user/1000/gvfs/smb-share..."** 

Since the question should not remain open indefinitely, I would like to put down the workaround that I found. With that also open office works fine.

The problem goes away when a share is not linked via gvfs as the file manager does it, but with cifs in /etc/fstab. The new entry maps the share to the home folder and uses a credentials file in the home folder

Here is how to do it, detailed explanations are in [How to select a file from a network share with file manager file open dialog.

sudo apt install cifs-utils
nano ~/.smbcredentials
  username=joe
  password=Doe711
  domain=myworkgroupname
chmod 400 ~/.smbcredentials
mkdir ~./network
mkdir ~./network/myserver
mkdir ~./network/myserver/sharename
sudo edit nano /etc/fstab
  //myserver/sharename /home/joe/network/myserver/sharename cifs credentials=/home/joe/.smbcredentials,uid=1000,gid=1000,iocharset=utf8,sec=ntlm, 0 0
sudo mount -a

Answer 3

I had, and was able to solve, the same issue in Xubuntu. LibreOffice could not open the Samba share and showed:

general I/O error

Lubuntu on the same machine works fine.

My solution was to install PCmanFM and use it instead of Thunar.

Now I can dynamically open the share and libreoffice works like a dream. I hope I can help somebody with this tip.

Answer 4

Here's what I found...

• Working: Opening the same file in /run/user/... as view only with the --view option.
• Working: Opening the same file smb://server/path/...
• Working: Other fuse type mounts(Not things in /run/user/), I tried cryfs, I presume cifs works too.
• Working: Every other program can read/write on /run/user/...
• Not working: Opening the same file in /run/user/...
• Not working: Opening the same file in /run/user/... with --nolockcheck
• Not working: Tried opening other types of files(.txt, .xlsx) in /run/user/...

So it only happens on the /run/user/ mount and libreoffice in non-view mode.

I am using pcmanfm which seems to open everything in file///run/user/... instead of smb://... nautilus uses smb://.. to open files so that works.

Answer 5

I had the same issue here with Linux Mint 18 (upgraded from 17.3) Cinnamon since I got version 5.4.3 of LibreOffice. I used to have a similar issue with previous versions of LibreOffice but there was a know workaround, which was to edit the libreoffice*.desktop files in /usr/share/applications and comment the line X-GIO-NoFuse=true. But since that last upgrade of LO it did not work any more.

However a few details and how I found a solution :

• I use Cinnamon, so that means the file explorer is Nemo (version 3.0.6)
• When opening a file over a samba share, the error only happened with LO Writer not with the other modules such as LO Calc !
• Copying the file to the local hard disk, LO opened it smoothly.
• When opening files using the command line, the error always happened, whether the module is LO Writer or another (LO Calc) !

I eventually noticed something : - that in /usr/share/applications, I now had two sets of libreoffice*.desktop files : one that followed the name syntax libreoffice-.desktop and one that followed the syntax libreoffice5.4-.desktop (and that actually were symlinks to files in opt/libreoffice5.4/share/xdg ). - I also noticed that when doing a right-click on the files, the top choice was 'Open with LibreOffice Writer' but that in the sub-menu 'Open with' there was 'LibreOffice 5.4' and that choosing this, it worked fine !

So I simply replaced the default software choice with 'LibreOffice 5.4' and I am now sorted out. Still it seems my installation is messy with components left from previous LO versions.