QA/Bibisect/Linux

This page provides information about using our Bibisect repositories on computers running GNU/Linux.

Introduction
Our bibisect repositories were originally built on Ubuntu 64bit machines. In general, all of these repos will run on most modern 64bit GNU/Linux distros (e.g. Fedora, SuSE, Debian, etc..), although some additional packages may be required.

If you're testing cross-platform, one option is to set up a virtual machine running your target OS (see below).

Choosing a Bibisect repository
As you can see in the table below, there are many different bibisect repositories covering different commit ranges. If you find a bug in LibreOffice 4.4.4, you'll want to download the 50max repository, as it covers: "The range from 4.4 branch point to 5.0 branch point"

It's possible that the bug in LO 4.4.4 predates the 4.4 branch point, at which point you'll want to download an additional (earlier) bibisect repository. We maintain separate bibisect repositories to both speed up the use of the repository, and to make it possible to download just one piece of the commit range.

Don't have a bug to bibisect yet? Find documented regressions in the list here.

Setting up Environment
Before we download the bibisect repository, let's make sure your machine has the right software installed. For all OSes, you'll need to install
 * git

The table below shows some of the additional software you'll need to add to get each of these bibisect repositories running properly on your system.

libpango 1.44+ incompatibility with older Harfbuzz versions
At least systems with libpango 1.44 and further fill fail to start older LibreOffice versions, and you will see nothing, a crash or the following message: Harfbuzz version too old (for reference see this GitHub issue). Eg. Ubuntu 20.04 can only open LO 5.2 and later releases (Harfbuzz in the LO repo was updated from 0.9.40 to 1.2.6 in April 2016).

Workaround for Ubuntu 20.04+

 * 1) Download libpango-1.0 package for Ubuntu 19.10 (not available anymore)
 * 2) Extract it using the command: dpkg -x
 * 3) From /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu move the library file and the symlink to a separate directory, eg. $HOME/oldlib
 * 4) Start LibreOffice like: LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$HOME/oldlib ./soffice

Note: the UI will appear with gen VCL plugin.

Downloading Bibisect Repository
Because we are a distributed, community project, we have created and hosted bibisect repositories on different servers. Although the exact procedures for downloading the repositories may differ slightly, most repositories may be retrieved via regular download from a web server or directly via git. Links can be found in the "Download Link" column in the version table below.

From a Web Server
Using the 43all repository as an example, we can download the git bundle from the TDF server, and clone in into a new git repository using the instructions found on that page.

Using Git
Live repositories are available from our Bibisect hosting. You may clone a bibisect repository the same way as you do with any other git repository:

> git clone https://bibisect.libreoffice.org/linux-64-6.2.git

Please be aware that the original download may be several gigabytes, so please make sure you're on a fast Internet connection and are reasonably certain that you will not experience network interruption. Because of the mechanics of git repositories, if the initial clone is interrupted, I believe that you'll have to start the clone all over again :-( Otherwise you can download the bundle and refresh later. (Check the instruction on the repository webpage for details.) You can also use a shallow clone as workaround:

# Use --depth=1 for the first clone, # which is usually less than 1GB (or even 300MB for certain repos): > git clone --depth=1 https://bibisect.libreoffice.org/linux-64-6.2.git # then use git pull and a deeper depth: > cd linux-64-6.2 > git pull --depth=1000 # and then 2000, 5000, 10000... # and then if you are confident with your network connection, # then convert it to a complete one using --unshallow: > git pull --unshallow

After the first clone, further updates to the git repository will be smaller, and will depend on how frequently the Tinderbox adds commits to the repository and how many days you wait before updating your repository.

Update your repository with

> git checkout master && git pull

Bibisecting the Bug
With a bug and test procedures in hand, and a downloaded and unpacked git repository ready to go, it's finally time to start bibisecting!

From now on latest will reference the latest commit in the repository, and oldest will reference the earliest one. Most repositories have tags defined for latest/oldest commits, if they aren't, the hashes can be acquired using the following commands, and copying them from the first entries from the respective result list:

Open a terminal, cd to your git repository, and checkout the latest commit:

In bibisect-linux-64-5.3, bibisect-linux-64-5.4 and more recent repositories, you need to use the following commands instead:

If the bug does not appear in that version, put a comment on the bug saying "Regression does not appear in latest version of , e.g. linux-43all.git and must be younger" and add the tags bibisected and bibisectedNewer as Keywords. You've now completed your bibisection! If there is a newer bibisect repository available, please consider downloading it and testing the bug again.

If the bug does appear in the latest version, continue.

After testing with the latest build, we next test with the oldest build included in the repo and check that the regression is not there:

In bibisect-linux-64-5.3, bibisect-linux-64-5.4 and more recent repositories, you need to use the following commands instead:

If the bug is already present at this point, it is not a regression in the range covered by the repo, but an even older bug.

First, put a comment on the bug saying "Regression does appear in oldest version of  and must be older"

If you are using the 43all repo, then:
 * 1) Add the word preBibisect to the Keywords, and
 * 2) Set the version of LibreOffice in the bug report to 3.5beta0 (which is the earliest version you can set).

If you are using another (newer) bibisect repo, please try downloading and testing with 43all.

If the bug does not appear in the oldest version, this means it is a regression in the range covered by the download and we can corner it down very well (hooray!). We will now leverage one of git's built-in tools to perform a binary search:

In bibisect-linux-64-5.3, bibisect-linux-64-5.4 and more recent repositories, you need to use the following commands instead:

Then repeat these commands:

In bibisect-linux-64-5.3, bibisect-linux-64-5.4 and more recent repositories, you need to use the following commands instead:

NB: From time to time, the currently check-out version of LibreOffice may fail to start. This can happen because, although the bibisect repo includes only successful builds, a successful build is not guaranteed to really work. In those cases, you'll want to skip a particular build:

After several repetitions, git will print out something like this: 9625329ea5a7e3e8475cd21c07726beec20573bd is the first bad commit commit 9625329ea5a7e3e8475cd21c07726beec20573bd Author: Bjoern Michaelsen  Date:  Thu Dec 8 12:29:59 2011 +0100

source-hash-2d19e9bb07ccff3134f855812dddfda5c07b1fe4 commit 2d19e9bb07ccff3134f855812dddfda5c07b1fe4 Author:    Jan Holesovsky  AuthorDate: Wed Nov 16 14:17:03 2011 +0100 Commit:    Jan Holesovsky  CommitDate: Wed Nov 16 14:21:33 2011 +0100 Kill one usage of chrel.sed to fix build.

We'll want to append this useful information to the bug report. (The source-hash-2d19e9bb07ccff3134f855812dddfda5c07b1fe4 line is the important piece, but please copy-in the entire message to a new comment).

The developers will also appreciate having the log output in the same comment:

Here's an example of how the log output might appear to you:

git bisect start 'latest' 'oldest' # good: [2faf4bc12ab490370d2196dedbc8091f9b09d0a5] source-hash-418a35f4861e863feb39eec73f4a39a87fbcb1f3 git bisect good 2faf4bc12ab490370d2196dedbc8091f9b09d0a5 # bad: [b6fca7e58854bc617c5fc9a75d1c1720b0d7e1a4] source-hash-ce60138d339a5eb2a174a5d27063249acf2cac42 git bisect bad b6fca7e58854bc617c5fc9a75d1c1720b0d7e1a4 # good: [0a28a62d53e996cf66d86e9bfb63ddc6ade75b7e] source-hash-71cbcb62028295a98ceee60cb4c4ee425bafcd2e git bisect good 0a28a62d53e996cf66d86e9bfb63ddc6ade75b7e # bad: [9625329ea5a7e3e8475cd21c07726beec20573bd] source-hash-2d19e9bb07ccff3134f855812dddfda5c07b1fe4 git bisect bad 9625329ea5a7e3e8475cd21c07726beec20573bd # good: [89d91bb6074026dc0894bcdc6aaf8f6124102da7] source-hash-fb754a0df859e30255c25af8fa19bfaa75f257e7 git bisect good 89d91bb6074026dc0894bcdc6aaf8f6124102da7

With our testing complete, please add bibisected to the Keywords so that this bug will no longer appear in the list of bugs that need bibisecting.

Tags in bibisect repos
The 43all repo has tags like,   that mark the last build on master before that release was branched off. If you have a bug that you already know has been introduced between 4.0 and 4.1, you can do:

To just search in that range. Note that the branch-off of a major release is much earlier than the first final release (usually between alpha and beta). So even a bug in the first major release might be well have been introduced _after_ branchoff. It should still be bibisectable on master on the way to the next release as almost all commits on the release branch go to master first. So: handle with care.

Reliably running old builds
The oldest builds in 43all repo refuse to work with JRE 8 or newer. They are verified as working in an Ubuntu 14.04 installation with JRE 6.

As a rule of thumb, using a Ubuntu 14.04 virtual machine will guarantee a pleasant experience with 43all repo and others from the same time range.

You might bump into a quirk in the oldest builds of 43all: after checkout, the binary refuses to run on the first attempt. The solution is just to run it a second time.

Special considerations for daily dbgutil repository
Each version has a file build-info.txt, and the first line of that file has the source-hash of that that build. It is helpful if you include the source hashes of the last good version and the first bad version in your report of bibisect results.

Using the max repository series
Be sure to read the README which indicates that in order to begin using this bibisect, first run:

The "max" repositories (43max, 44max, 50max) contain one commit for each source commit of the corresponding master range, with the exceptions that:
 * Changes which only affected an architecture other than 64bit Linux are omitted
 * Ranges of broken builds are collapsed to a single commit

When broken builds have been skipped, a comment will be present in the commit message: (Bibisect: This commit covers source commit(s) ...... which failed to build)

In this case, the specific source commit has not been identified, and the result still requires further investigation.

In all other cases, the result can be taken as equivalent to having run "git bisect" on the source tree, and this should be represented by adding bisected and bibisected in the Keywords.

Youtube Video Tutorial
A short video tutorial (Youtube) by Florian Reisinger.
 * (Apologies for the audio quality of this screencast)

VM
Testing GNU/Linux bugs inside a VM is a great way to leverage the large number of bibisect repositories available for this platform if you're using Windows or macOS as your host OS.

Suggested setup:
 * Virtualization Software: VirtualBox
 * Guest OS: Ubuntu 14.04 x86_64 (Desktop version)
 * (Virtual) Hard drive: at least 40GB (some bibisect repositories are over 10GB each)

Short (and sweet) Instructions - Linux Only

 * 1) Download repo (multiple gigs, don't worry - just one time) - See
 * 2) Unpack repo to somewhere useful
 * 3) Open terminal and make sure git and libjpeg62 are installed. On Ubuntu it would be sudo apt-get install git libjpeg62
 * 4) Enter the directory of the unpacked repo cd [downloaded directory location]
 * 5) Start bisecting  git bisect start latest oldest
 * 6) Launch Libreoffice in the current revision ./opt/program/soffice
 * 7) Try replicating bug for this revision
 * 8) if it doesn't exist git bisect good
 * 9) if it does exist git bisect bad
 * 10) Repeat step 6 & 7 until you get a message like 5a52acff89c733acbd4be6896748c76a010cb507 is the first bad commit
 * 11) Get the log of the operation and Copy/paste it to bug report git bisect log

Versions
The repositories here cover a combined range from 3.5beta0 through master.

Older dbgutil daily repos

 * 6.2 -> 6.3 is only available till 2018-12-18, then I (Miklos) lost the man-power to keep maintaining it
 * 6.1 -> 6.2: repo (4.8G)
 * 6.0 -> 6.1: repo (5.3G)
 * 5.4 -> 6.0: repo (5.1G)
 * 5.3 -> 5.4: repo (4.8G)
 * 5.2 -> 5.3: repo (4.3G)
 * 5.1 -> 5.2: repo (4.1G)
 * 5.0 -> 5.1: repo (4.5G)
 * 4.4 -> 5.0: repo (4.7G)
 * 4.3 -> 4.4: repo (4.5G)
 * 4.2 -> 4.3: repo (4.3G)
 * 4.1 -> 4.2: repo (3.4G)
 * even older versions

How to fix 'librtmp.so.0: cannot open shared object file'
I experienced this problem with bibisect-50max repository

1. Check whether librtmp is installed locate librtmp

/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/librtmp.so.1 /usr/share/doc/librtmp1 /usr/share/doc/librtmp1/changelog.Debian.gz /usr/share/doc/librtmp1/copyright /var/lib/dpkg/info/librtmp1:amd64.list /var/lib/dpkg/info/librtmp1:amd64.md5sums /var/lib/dpkg/info/librtmp1:amd64.postinst /var/lib/dpkg/info/librtmp1:amd64.postrm /var/lib/dpkg/info/librtmp1:amd64.shlibs /var/lib/dpkg/info/librtmp1:amd64.symbols

2. Create a link sudo ln -s /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/librtmp.so.1 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/librtmp.so.0

How to fix 'libboost_filesystem-mt.so.1.53.0: cannot open shared object file'
This happens with bibisect-linux-64-5.3 due to liborcus-0.11.so.0 in the repository being linked to this particular library since commit.

1. Insall libboost_filesystem in your distribution

2. Create a link sudo ln -s /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libboost_filesystem.so /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libboost_filesystem-mt.so.1.53.0

How to fix GTK errors of not starting LibreOffice
Error 'libvclplug_gtk3lo.so: undefined symbol: gtk_widget_path_iter_set_object_name' happens with bibisect-linux-64-5.2 due to a problem with GTK3.

1. Launch LibreOffice in GTK2: 'SAL_USE_VCLPLUGIN=gtk instdir/program/soffice'

LibreOffice may not start GUI from older repos 4.2 or 4.4 if ran on newer OS with updated GTK3.

2. Launch LibreOffice (which is in 'opt' in older versions) without GTK: 'SAL_USE_VCLPLUGIN=gen opt/program/soffice'