NeoOffice Download and Installation Issues

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Downloading NeoOffice

Existing users who have made a payment during the last year

If you are an existing NeoOffice user who has made a payment within the last year, you will be able to download the newest NeoOffice releases as normal. When your services expire in the future, you will be able to make a new payment using the method described below.

Existing users who have not made a payment during the last year

If you are an existing NeoOffice user who has not made a payment within the last year, has not made a payment dispute in the past, and would like to download one of the newest NeoOffice releases, follow these steps in order to make a new payment:

  1. Visit the NeoOffice download page and click on NeoOffice Classic Edition.
  2. Login using the e-mail address that you used when you made your last PayPal payment.
  3. If you have not made a payment during the last year, a PayPal payment form will appear. Follow the instructions on that page to make a new payment.

I want to download NeoOffice 3.4.1 but I only see NeoOffice 2015 Classic Edition

If you are running Mac OS X 10.6 - 10.10 and you do not want to upgrade to NeoOffice 2015 Classic Edition, you can download the older NeoOffice 3.4.1 version here.

Before Installing

Do I need to uninstall a previous version of NeoOffice first?

No. NeoOffice will install over an existing NeoOffice installation. After upgrading, you may want to check for upgrades to any third-party dictionaries that you may have previously installed.

Can I have two versions of NeoOffice installed on the same machine?

Yes. To install a second version of NeoOffice, use the following steps:

  1. In the Finder, create a copy of your NeoOffice installation by navigating to the /Applications fodler and right-clicking or Control-clicking on the NeoOffice icon. In the popup menu that appears, select the Duplicate menu item. This will create a new NeoOffice installation in the /Applications folder.
  2. Install the new version of NeoOffice. The installer will upgrade either the original installation or the copied installation that you created but it will not upgrade both.
  3. When you no longer need to use one of the versions, drag the undesired version of NeoOffice from the /Applications folder to the Trash, empty the Trash.

Note: while you can have two versions of NeoOffice installed on the same machine, in most cases only one version can be run at a time. You must quit the running version of NeoOffice before you launch a different version of NeoOffice.

Do I need to uninstall OpenOffice or LibreOffice first?

No. NeoOffice will not harm your OpenOffice or LibreOffice installation. NeoOffice uses separate folders to store your user preferences, macros, and extensions so you do not need to uninstall either OpenOffice or LibreOffice.

To have the Finder open files in NeoOffice instead of in OpenOffice or LibreOffice, use the steps for setting the default application.

Installation Issues

When double-clicking on the .dmg file, there is an error about "image not recognized"

This error usually means that the NeoOffice .dmg file was not completely downloaded. The NeoOffice .dmg file is very large and some combinations of browsers and internet connections can cause downloads of large files to fail without any error before the entire file has finished downloading.

In this case, you might try using the command-line curl tool to complete the download (this tool is also useful if you have a slow internet connection and you might want to temporarily stop the download to free up your internet connection. Instructions on using curl to download NeoOffice can be found here.

Installation stalls when it gets to the "Select Destination" panel

The installer sometimes hangs when it gets to the "Select Destination" panel and no drives in that panel will be selectable.

Unreachable or unreadable volumes on your Mac

The Apple Installer is known to hang when probing all of the volumes on your system if any of your volumes are unreadable.

Try opening each of the volumes on your desktop in the Finder and unmounting any iPods. Once you can open all volumes, then try rerunning the installer. If opening any volumes causes the Finder to hang, you have found the cause of the problem and you might need to reboot to force Mac OS X to unmount the offending volume.

Virus Barrier X6 software

VirusBarrier X6 is known to crash while scanning NeoOffice’s pre-installation scripts, thereby blocking the Apple Installer from continuing. Sometimes after a period of 10 minutes Apple’s installer will recover.

You may be able to prevent this problem from occurring by temporarily disabling the “Scanning & Firewall” feature of VirusBarrier X6 before trying to install NeoOffice or a NeoOffice patch.

If neither temporarily disabling the “Scanning & Firewall” feature of VirusBarrier X6 nor waiting 10 minutes of the Apple Installer to recover works, you may have to completely uninstall VirusBarrier X6.

Installation fails with a "Install Failed. The source media you are installing from is damaged" error message

For some users, installation will fail and the following error message will appear:

Install Failed. The source media you are installing from is damaged

If you see this message, most likely the disk image you downloaded was not completely downloaded (but somehow still passed the Mac OS X disk image validation). To verify that the disk image is actually the same size as the original on the NeoOffice.org servers, you can follow these steps:

  1. Select the downloaded file in the Finder
  2. Choose Get Info from the Finder’s File menu
  3. Compare the number of bytes (listed in parentheses at the end of the Size: line in the Get Info window) to the number of bytes listed on the NeoOffice download page, Language Pack download page, or Patch download page for the file you downloaded.
  4. If the size does not match, your download is incomplete.

You can also compare the MD5SUM for the file you downloaded to the MD5SUM of the original files, which are listed on the NeoOffice MD5 Checksums page along with instructions for computing the MD5SUM.

If your download was incomplete, you may be able to complete it by using the curl Terminal command instead of re-downloading the entire file. For instructions on using the curl method, see Using curl to download NeoOffice.

Installation fails with a "generic" error message

For some users, installation will fail and the following error message will appear:

There were errors installing the software
Please try installing again.

If you see this message, you need to open the System Preferences application (/Applications/System Preferences), click on the International icon, select the Languages tab, move English to the top of the list, log out, login again, and then rerun the installer. After installation, you can (and should) revert to your preferred language.

This behavior is required to work around a rare but serious bug in the Mac OS X Installer on some versions of Mac OS X; for more information, see this section of the Download instructions.

Why does the NeoOffice installer request my administrator password?

In this thread, Patrick Luby explains the reasons for this requirement:

Administrator access is required because Neo/J uses OpenOffice.org's multi-user installation. This doesn't require admin access, but in the early days of Neo/J testing, we found that the OOo code has a very bad habit of trying to edit the installed files if the files are owned by the same user that is running Neo/J. This can really muck up a Neo/J installation over time.
So, to prevent the OOo code from editing any of the files in the installation, the installer executes chown -Rf root:admin and chmod -Rf a-w all of the Neo/J files.

Patching Issues

The patch installation fails with a "generic" error message

For some users, installation will fail and the following error message will appear:

There were errors installing the software
Please try installing again.

See Installation fails with a "generic" error message in the Installation Issues section above.

The patch installer refuses to start the installation.

Under Mac OS X 10.3.x and 10.4.x, the installer will provide a red "stop" sign with exclamation point; clicking on the volume will produce the error message "You cannot install this software on this volume" as well as some further information about the problem (or on 10.4.x, "Could not find specified message for index 16", which is a bug in the 10.4.x installer).

There are two cases in which these messages might appear.

The patch is for a version of NeoOffice newer than the version installed on your computer

Patches for the latest version of NeoOffice will not apply to earlier versions of NeoOffice. Each time NeoOffice moves to a new version of the OpenOffice.org codebase (including OpenOffice.org minor point releases), the patches for the new version will be incompatible with older versions of NeoOffice. The latest version of NeoOffice uses a certain OpenOffice.org codebase while earlier versions of NeoOffice used a different (also earlier) OpenOffice.org codebase. As described in this thread, "It would be like trying to apply the Mac OS X 10.3.1 updater to Mac OS X 10.2.8...."

If you open NeoOffice and select "About" from the "Help" menu, the version reported in the About window should be the latest version of NeoOffice. See the NeoOffice Release Notes to learn which version is the latest.

To fix this problem, drag NeoOffice from the Applications folder to the Trash. Then download and install the latest version and the new patch that goes with it.

NeoOffice is not located in the /Applications folder

The message will also appear if you have moved NeoOffice from your /Applications folder, or if you have renamed NeoOffice. The patch installer will only search the /Applications folder for NeoOffice installations; /Applications is the only supported location for installing NeoOffice.

To fix this problem, quit the installer and move NeoOffice back into your /Applications folder (or rename the application "NeoOffice"). Because the underlying OpenOffice.org stores a number of absolute pathnames in its configuration and preference files, you will also have to delete the ~/Library/Preferences/NeoOffice-x.x folder or you will experience errors running NeoOffice in the future. Then run the installer again to install the patch.

Post-Installation and First Launch Issues

Check your language settings before launching NeoOffice

NeoOffice adopts the uppermost language of the Languages: box of the International pane of the Mac OS X System Preferences as its own language for spellchecking (assuming that the necessary language pack is already installed or the language is one of the default 12 languages).

Be aware that some languages have more than one form (e.g., English has US English, British English, Australian English, etc.) as the possible selection; click the Edit List... button in the Language tab of the International pane of the Mac OS X System Preferences to add your version of the language, and then drag and drop it to the top of the list in the Languages: box before launching NeoOffice for the first time.

See Troubleshooting Spellcheck for further details on issues with certain languages.

Why doesn't NeoOffice let me run it as “root”?

In this thread, Patrick Luby explains the reasons for this requirement:

Running as root is disabled on purpose. Over a year ago I added this code because we found that running as root causes the underlying OpenOffice.org code to act like it is in "single-user install" mode. In this mode, OpenOffice.org starts writing user preferences in the /Applications/NeoOffice.app files. This, in turn, makes Neo pretty much unusable for any other user account on your machine.

Also note that running as (or even enabling) root is discouraged under Mac OS X, and one should only use root if one is an experienced UNIX admin and has a good reason to do so.

Why does NeoOffice access the Internet after the first launch?

NeoOffice is regularly being improved. Bugs are being fixed and new features are constantly being added.

When you first install a version of NeoOffice, and about once a week thereafter, the application will check the Internet to inform you of any new recommended patches or updates so that you can be sure that your version is always up-to-date.

If a new patch is found, your preferred web browser should open and take you to the patch download page.

Staying up-to-date will not only increase the stability of your software, it will cut down on the large number of "duplicate" bugs filed that have already been fixed in released patches. This helps ensure that limited development time can be spent on unfixed bugs and adding new features.

If you do need to disable the "patch-check" feature (for instance, you are in a managed environment and will be handling mass-deployment of NeoOffice patches yourself), see Disabling Patch Checking for instructions. If you disable patch checking, we strongly urge you to subscribe to the NeoJUpdate mailing list, closely watch the NeoOffice Release Notes page in this wiki, or use another method to keep aware of the latest patches.

Troubleshooting

Troubleshooting tips for other common problems can be found on the Troubleshooting Tips page.

How do I get rid of NeoOffice?

You have tried NeoOffice and decided it is not for you. This happens sometimes. You can use these instructions to remove NeoOffice without leaving any trace. Please note that you will no longer be able to read any spreadsheet (.ods), presentation (.odp), database (.odb), math (.odm), or graphics (.odg) documents you may have saved in the OpenDocument file formats (TextEdit will open word processing [.odt] files).

How do I cancel a recurring payment (subscription) to NeoOffice?

If you have decided that NeoOffice no longer fits your needs and had previously set up a recurring (monthly) payment via PayPal, the following methods will allow you to cancel that payment.

Method 1:

  1. Log into your PayPal account
  2. Visit your account's "My Account" > "Overview" page.
  3. Click on a recent NeoOffice payment listed on that page.
    This will display the details of that payment and you should see a link to the PayPal subscription number.
  4. Click on that subscription number link, and the page that appears should have a "cancel subscription" button.

Method 2:

  1. Log into your PayPal account.
  2. Go to "My account" > "Profile" > "My money" > "My pre-approved payments" > "Update" to see a list of recurring payments.
  3. You can then cancel those recurring payments you no longer wish to continue, e.g., the one for NeoOffice.

If these steps are not clear or you need more help, vist the PayPal Help Center and search for "How do I cancel a subscription?" to see PayPal’s step-by-step walkthrough.


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