Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 96611
First person to open a read-only document has exclusive lock on it. Nobody else than this first user can open it for read-write.
Last modified: 2017-05-20 10:48:12 UTC
We have a few documents which are mainly meant for reference and we don't want people to make changes to the file by accident. And when a change has to be made it has to be well thought of. Already from the time we used MS Office (Excel) we marked those documents to be opened read-only by default. And when a change has to be made, it can then be reopened in read-write mode. This way we are certain accidental changes are (as good as) excluded, and I don't have to find out who opened the document first and thus has the lock on the file, before I can change the document. If there is a lock on the file, then we know someone is actually editing the file and not only having the file open for reference. When we migrated those documents to OpenOffice (v2.3 back then) we set this option again on those files: Extra -> Options -> Security -> Open in Read-Only mode (translated from dutch, don't know the actual English notation) And at first it seems to work as expected: When the file is opened, it opens in read-only mode by default. But when a second user tries to open the file for read-write, OOo complains telling the file is already in use for read-write by another user (since OOo 3 it even gives us the username of the user who opened the file first). Only when the first user toggles from the default read-only mode to read-write mode and then back to read-only mode, the lock on the file is released and a second user can switch to read-write mode. Steps to reproduce: * Open an existing document or create a new one * Set Extra -> Options -> Security -> Open in Read-Only mode * Close the file * Re-open the file --> The file is opened in Read-Only mode * Have a second user on the network also open the file --> The file is opened Read-Only * Have the second user click on the Open for editing-button --> The user will get an error about the file being in editing mode by the first user * Have the first user click on the Open for editing-button --> The file will be reopened in read-write mode * Have the first user again click on the Open for editing-button --> The file be reopened again in read-only mode * The second user can now press the Open for editing-button and edit the file. We have seen this issue as of OOo 2.3 through 2.4, 2.4.1 to 3.0. The OS we use is Windows XP on PC platform, but I assume this is OS and platform independent? I think this is a defect since a user never expects that he is locking a file for read-write by opening it read-only.
TM->MAV: reproducible in a m12, please have a look, thanks.
This is a very old behavior and actually a feature. It was explicitly implemented in the way that the document opened for editing but the UI does not allow to edit the document. mav->fl: As we have discussed, the requested behavior looks to be more consistent. Setting the target 3.x for now.
We have a similar problem where there's one person controlling a MS Excel spreadsheet and all the others can use it for reference. The file is setup to open read only or read/write with a password. The master can open the file at any time to modify it and the other users can open it for reference (read only) at any time using MS Excel. With OpenOffice, if at least one user has it opened read only, the master can not modify the file. He has to find all the users that have the file opened and ask them to close it before being able to modify the file. This is more a bug than a feature or is a bad feature. Is there a way in the options to fix this?? I looked but I didn't find anything. Thanks,
Reset assigne to the default "issues@openoffice.apache.org".