LibreOffice is a popular alternative to the MS Office suite on not just Linux, but Windows as well. While it distinguishes itself from MS Office by being free and open source, there are some unwelcomed similarities as well.
Reports of LibreOffice freezing, crashing, or even not opening at all is fairly common. In most cases, a corrupt user profile or misconfigured settings lead to such issues.
In this article, we’ve detailed these and other common reasons why LibreOffice doesn’t work properly, as well as how you may resolve them on Windows and Ubuntu.
Why Is LibreOffice Not Working?
How to Fix LibreOffice Not Working?
We recommend applying the solutions in the order listed below. If nothing else works, you may reinstall LibreOffice as a last resort.
When closing applications, a few background processes remain open sometimes. As such, you won’t be able to run the application due to said processes. This is a common issue with apps in general rather than just LibreOffice. In such cases, you may simply end the processes and LibreOffice should open as usual afterward.
Here’s how you may end the LibreOffice processes on Windows:
Here’s how you may end the LibreOffice processes on Ubuntu:
In case of a non-responding instance of LibreOffice,restarting in Safe Modeshould be helpful. This starts LibreOffice with a fresh user profile, so any issues with profile corruption can be diagnosed this way as well.
Here’s how you may start LibreOffice in safe mode on Windows:
Here’s how you may access safe mode for LibreOffice on Ubuntu:
Modify LibreOffice Settings
In cases where LibreOffice is frequently crashing or not responding, users have had success with disabling a few graphics-related settings. Here’s how you may do the same onWindows and Ubuntu:
If LibreOffice worked fine when testing in safe mode earlier, the issue is likely with your user profile. In such cases, you may make a backup of the current profile and then reset it to verify if that fixes the issue.
