OOo 3.0 process on Windows cannot be started using soffice.bin

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OOo on Windows has two executables: soffice.exe and soffice.bin; the
soffice.exe is some sort of wrapper that then invokes soffice.bin. (On
Linux the wrapper is a shell script.)

JODConverter currently invokes soffice.bin directly to have a reference to
the real OOo process.

As reported by Bruno on the forum, invoking soffice.bin no longer works
with OOo 3.0 on Windows.

Trying with OOo 3.0 rc1 from the command line, soffice.bin shows an error
message saying "sal3.dll was not found".

Original issue reported on code.google.com by mirko.na...@gmail.com on 14 Sep 2008 at 11:16

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Original comment by mirko.na...@gmail.com on 14 Sep 2008 at 11:16

• Added labels: Target-3.0.0.b1

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Original comment by mirko.na...@gmail.com on 14 Sep 2008 at 11:17

• Added labels: Version-3.0.x.dev

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The simple fix is to invoke soffice.exe rather than soffice.bin.

But this means that from Java we have a reference to the wrapper process rather 
than
the real one, so e.g. killing the process when it's stuck may kill only the 
wrapper.

We need a better understanding of what this wrapper executable does.

Original comment by mirko.na...@gmail.com on 14 Sep 2008 at 2:05

[GoogleCodeExporter]

The simple fix is to invoke soffice.exe rather than soffice.bin.

But this means that from Java we have a reference to the wrapper process rather 
than
the real one, so e.g. killing the process when it's stuck may kill only the 
wrapper.

We need a better understanding of what this wrapper executable does.

Original comment by mirko.na...@gmail.com on 14 Sep 2008 at 2:05

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An interesting OOo issue: http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=62312

Original comment by mirko.na...@gmail.com on 14 Sep 2008 at 2:07

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This explains why invoking soffice.bin in OOo 3.0 no longer works:
http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS/entry/ooo_3_est_omnis_divisa

Original comment by mirko.na...@gmail.com on 14 Sep 2008 at 2:23

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So due to the new 3-layer OOo architecture

  http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/ODF_Toolkit/Efforts/Three-Layer_OOo

on Windows we need to add to the PATH "C:\Program Files\OpenOffice.org\Basis
3.0\program" and "C:\Program Files\OpenOffice.org\URE\bin" before being able to
invoke soffice.bin directly.

On Linux the OOo installation uses symlinks to find the Basis and URE paths. On
Windows - that doesn't have symlinks - there's a plain text file "C:\Program
Files\OpenOffice.org 3\basis-link" containing the path to Basis, and another 
plain
text file "C:\Program Files\OpenOffice.org\Basis 3.0\ure-link" containing the 
path to
URE.

After this treasure hunt we should be able to add the two paths to the PATH
environment variable before starting the process.

Original comment by mirko.na...@gmail.com on 14 Sep 2008 at 4:53

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Fixed in r32 by appending the newly required paths to the environment before 
starting
the OOo process.

Original comment by mirko.na...@gmail.com on 14 Sep 2008 at 8:04

• Changed state: Fixed

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Great, thanks!

Original comment by Gount...@gmail.com on 10 Oct 2008 at 3:46

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Original comment by mirko.na...@gmail.com on 27 Mar 2011 at 1:21

• Changed state: Released