LibreOffice crash with Java Version 1.6.0_24 or higher

[Stephan Bergmann]

On 11/06/2012 10:35 AM, Ulrich Kitzinger wrote:
> at the City of Munich we have an Office extension, the WollMux
> (http://www.wollmux.net/). And we have a little problem: After
> installing the WollMux via the Extension Manager, Libre Office crashes
> reliably when you start Writer (not LibreOffice), and open and close the
> Extension Manager several (2 .. 10, mostly <5) times.
>
> The crash occurs:
>
> with Ubuntu 12.0.4
> if a Java Runtime version 1.6.0_24 or higher is used; all works fine
> when using a JRE version 1.6.0._20.
> independently whether an OpenJre or OracleJre is used
> if LO is started with KDE-support; when starting with gnome-support
> (OOO_FORCE_DESKTOP=gnome) all works fine
> with LO 3.5, 3.7 and a LibreOffice we build ourselves
>
> I attach a logfile of the crash. Any hints how to avoid the crash would
> be welcome.

The JVM's hs_err_*.log files are not very informative.  Whenever a JVM 
is instantiated in-process, it happens to report on all the process's 
crashes, whether related to the JVM or not.  (Though in this case the 
problem appears to be related to Java alright.)  The given stack 
backtrace is not very useful.

One approach could be to attach gdb to the running soffice.bin process 
and see if it can produce more useful backtraces upon the crash.  (But 
note that the in-process JVM can cause additional harmless SEGVs that 
you need to continue from in the debugger.)  Anyway, the end result 
could well be that this is some Java and/or KDE problem, and that trying 
to pinpoint it by debuggin soffice.bin remains fruitless.

Stephan