[libreoffice-users] Two fixed problems with LO 3.5 Calc

Two Problems with LO 3.5 Calc - Fixed

Whoooo!!! Fixed it at laaaaaaast!

Have three Windows XP, SP 3 systems, different hardware.  Installed LO3.5 on
the primary system that I use LO Calc on occasionally.  Had two problems:

Problem 1. Three pre-existing spreadsheets that worked OK on LO 3.4.5 and
were probably created under an earlier OO Calc started randomly showing
#VALUE in a calculated field.  Naturally the first instance of this spread
to all subsequent dependent fields.  

Am not a spreadsheet guru so had to study up a bit about how to debug this. 
Learned that you start with the first or lowest cell coordinate instance and
try to cure that.  Also apparently the offending cell will show in green. 
To me a #VALUE error is like a type mismatch i.e. trying to calculate with a
text field.  

However in every case the offending cell was blank.  So first substituted a
literal of numeric 0 in the formula and bingo that cleared the error for
that cell.  Putting a value of numeric 0 in the offending cell also worked. 
But curiously there were blank cells in prior calculated fields that did NOT
seem to cause the #VALUE error.  So I simply copied one of those fields and
pasted it over an error causing field (again all of these appeared as blank
on the sheet) and that also cured the error. So copied and pasted all the
remaining cells with the good "seed" cell and fixed all the errors.

Bottom Line: To me this would indicate some form of stricter type testing
(than was the case in LO 3.4.5 and earlier) relative to otherwise blank
cells.  In other words some blank cells are the equivalent of numeric 0, yet
others are treated as empty text (and won't fly in a formula.)  

Back when I was coding with stone and clay tablets that sort of thing tended
to be caused by a new batch of clay tablets.  I suppose nowadays that would
be the same as a new compiler version that subtly changes the strictness of
type checking.  Problem was same on all of my systems.

Problem 2.

In working on above noticed that the formula toolbar (Name Box, function
wizard icon etc...) was missing, (opted off apparently.) Tried to find a way
to turn this on and before I spotted View, Toolbars; I tried Tools, Solver. 
Big mistake! Never saw a program bug out so fast.  Crashed in a blink.

Long story short.  Solver depends upon the JRE (Java Run Time). Went through
several iterations of uninstalling LO 3.5 and Java, and then re-installing
with only marginal improvement, at best LO 3.5 would wait a couple of
seconds before crashing.

Also found out about a neat little and odd program called JavaRa which lets
one clear all copies of Java from a system (a Java enema of sorts).

Finally came across this
http://nabble.documentfoundation.org/JAVA-issue-tc3546411.html#a3546522 
which states "best release of java, for LibreOffice seems to be the 6u21
version which is hopefully still available."   And indeed it is here:
http://download.java.net/jdk6/6u21/promoted/b05/binaries/

The nabble document also states "...you can run more than 1 version of java
and only LibreOffice will use the older one and only if you specifically ask
it too -- Tools - Options - Java"  So downloaded 6u21, installed it, then
pointed LO 3.5 to use that version and Problem Solved!

My other XP systems did not exhibit this problem.  One is a fresh build from
a blank HDD.  The other has been in use for a few years.  The problem system
was about 6 months old.  Went to each system and did a Tools, Options, Java
and let it detect which and how many JRE installs each had.  The newest
system had Sun 1.6.0_31, the older system had a series of 1.6.0 from _02 up
t0 _29 with _29 selected.  The problem system had Oracle 7u3 and was
crashing with that version; was fine after installing Sun 6u21 (I have no
idea how Java versioning works).

So tried installing the latest 7u3 on the newest system, selected 7u3 and
now that system produced a message that the JRE was "defective" but did not
seem to crash.  Opting it back to 1.6.0_30, it was fine again.

Bottom Line LO 3.5 (and maybe 3.4.5 also, did not investigate that version)
do NOT like the latest Oracle JRE version 7u3. 

One of the rare cases where it may be better not to upgrade Java when
installing LO 3.5 and if problems develop using Java then just install an
older version and point LO 3.5 to that.   

Posting this in case anyone else has seen similar problems.

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