Ubuntu – In 16.04, Libreoffice crashes the OS

I had the same issue on Arch linux (32bit xfce) https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=227597

I've managed to solve it by turning off Java in Libreoffice>

First, start Libreoffice, click on Tools, click on options and under Libreoffice section click on Advanced. Deselect "Use a Java runtime environment" and problem solved.

I don't think this a good solution, but considering I don't use Java in Libreoffice it's good enough for me.

I get on the right track.

After another crash, I examined /var/log/syslog and turned up this:

Oct 17 20:01:14 azed-H270N kernel: [38304.615927] [drm] GPU HANG: ecode 9:0:0x85dffffb, in Xorg [969], reason: Hang on render ring, action: reset
Oct 17 20:01:14 azed-H270N kernel: [38304.615958] drm/i915: Resetting chip after gpu hang
Oct 17 20:01:14 azed-H270N kernel: [38304.616003] [drm] RC6 on
Oct 17 20:01:14 azed-H270N kernel: [38304.632462] [drm] GuC firmware load skipped
Oct 17 20:01:26 azed-H270N kernel: [38316.580869] drm/i915: Resetting chip after gpu hang

This suggested to me that the problem was indeed this bug. Post #6 in the above thread refers to the tendency of systems using the i915 driver to hang as "a well-known problem with the i915 driver".

For purposes of comparison, if anyone else has this problem, here's my kit:

azed@azed-H270N:~$ sudo lshw -C video
[sudo] password for azed:
*-display
description: VGA compatible controller
product: Sky Lake Integrated Graphics
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 2
bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0
version: 06
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pciexpress msi pm vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
configuration: driver=i915 latency=0
resources: irq:132 memory:f6000000-f6ffffff memory:e0000000-efffffff ioport:f000(size=64) memory:c0000-dffff

OK, so what to do?

Post #12 in the above thread recommended installing xserver-xorg-video-intel as a fix:

But when I tried doing this with Synaptic, the system wouldn't let me. Another package, xserver-xorg-video-all-hwe-16.04, had to be uninstalled first. Unfortunately, my system wasn't keen to do the uninstall.

A little research revealed that the above was installed at the time of a 16.04 point-release earlier in the year. This info was consistent with the behaviour of my system, which ran OK last year.

Solution:

Found a possible solution here. Following the advice given at the above w/page, I did this:

sudo apt remove xserver-xorg-core-hwe-16.04 xserver-xorg-input-all-hwe-16.04 linux-generic-hwe-16.04 xserver-xorg-video-all-hwe-16.04
sudo apt install xserver-xorg-core
sudo apt install ubuntu-desktop xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-input-all

Note: I omitted libgl1-mesa-dri:i386 libgl1-mesa-glx:i386 from the version of this last command given in the link above, as the 64-bit versions of these packages seemed to be already installed in my system.

Having made the above changes, I rebooted. The system came back fine.

Result:

That was a week ago. I haven't had a single "hang" since. My 16.04 system now seems to be working fine.

By the way, I don't think the hang-problem has anything much to do with Libreoffice. I am still getting /var/log/syslog-warnings like:

Oct 24 09:52:57 azed-H270N gnome-session[1684]: (soffice:2017): Gdk-WARNING **: gdk_window_set_icon_list: icons too large
Oct 24 09:53:05 azed-H270N org.gtk.vfs.Daemon[1548]: ** (gvfsd:1619): WARNING **: dbus_mount_reply: Error from org.gtk.vfs.Mountable.mount(): Failed to mount Windows share: Invalid argument
Oct 24 09:53:07 azed-H270N org.gtk.vfs.Daemon[1548]: message repeated 2 times: [ ** (gvfsd:1619): WARNING **: dbus_mount_reply: Error from org.gtk.vfs.Mountable.mount(): Failed to mount Windows share: Invalid argument]
Oct 24 09:54:26 azed-H270N gnome-session[1684]: ** (soffice:2017): WARNING **: Unknown event notification 36

but these don't seem to be causing trouble. I think my problem was a problem with Xorg. I made the association with LibreOffice because I tended to be using it (I use it a lot) whenever the system crashed.

Hope all this helps someone.

Note: if the above solution doesn't work for you, the changes can be reverted with:

sudo apt-get install --install-recommends linux-generic-hwe-16.04 xserver-xorg-hwe-16.04

I think that's it, anyway. See here:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack