I installed the Android version of Collabora Office (v23.05.5.2) from the Play Store on a Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact (Android 10). However, although every file that I select seems to open (it says “loading”) I only see a blank white page. I have tried spreadsheets and text documents and I have tried loading them from my file manager and also directly from within Collabora. The files are all local and Collabora has permission to access “storage”. Collabora seems to be functional. I can see the menus and the pencil to permit editing. I can create a new file but it also is completely blank. I tried typing some words. Nothing appears on the screen but if I then open the new document in another application I can see the text I typed.
I use the same version of Collabora Office on my tablet which works fine.
I noticed one other factor that may be relevant. In a text document, once I set it to be editable, if I select the search function and type in something I know to be in the document the blue highlight marker that shows the text that has been found appears on the screen but there still is no text visible. If I keep typing the text I know to be in the document, the highlight extends character-by-character until I type something not in the document and then the highlight disappears. So, clearly Collabora has loaded the document and is able to interact with it but it just doesn’t display any of it on the screen.
@hught, it seems this issue might be related to the text color. The text might be white, making it invisible against a similar background color in the document.
Could you provide some details about your setup?
Are you using dark mode for your system applications?
The reason I ask is that the app might be adapting to your Android theme settings.
Can you share the document with me?
Also, please try switching to dark mode and see if the text becomes visible.
@darshan, it seems to be more fundamental than that.
I have tried the dark theme, the light theme and the system default. The only difference is that with the dark theme I get a completely black screen instead of a white one.
This happens with ALL text and spreadsheet documents, at least all the ones I have tried so far. The documents work fine elsewhere.
It stalls when trying to load a pdf - it just sits “Loading” forever.
It’s not just the text that is white. When I load a spreadsheet there are no column or row headers, no grid, no sheet tabs and no cell entry bar at the top. The only things that show are 1) the bottom pencil icon or the toolbar if I select it to allow editing; 2) the menu bar at the top.
Probing a bit further, I tried the icons along the menu bar at the top.
The tick works and switches out of edit mode. Then the left chevron arrow that comes up closes the document.
The undo and redo buttons seem to work although I can’t see exactly what they are doing as I am working blind with any edits.
The comment button works.
The hamburger button at the right DOESN’T work. So, I don’t have access to search, file operations etc.
I found one reference to what looks to be the same problem from about three years ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/fossdroid/comments/n363kx/anyone_else_having_issues_with_collabora_office/
However, no solution was presented in that thread.
Another update:
I decided to try uninstalling Collabora and then installing it again (I suppose it should have been an obvious thing to try earlier) and I can now load documents. So, the install process must have gone a bit awry the first time round.
Now I have a different problem. Text documents seem to work fine but spreadsheets are very, very laggy. When I open the document it takes a while before I can do anything. Then if, for instance, I start scrolling through a spreadsheet (even a smallish one), it works for a short time and then freezes. After a few seconds it then jumps to where it should be and works for another short time. It looks like some kind of buffering problem and if I get too far ahead of it the whole phone freezes and I have to turn the phone off and on again to get control. This is a more generic problem as it happens on my Android 13 tablet as well. It happens on all spreadsheets I have tried.
@hught, could I ask you for one more favor? If you could create a new topic specifically about the laggy spreadsheets issue, it would be really helpful for other users searching by keyword. Since we’re an active community, other users might have encountered this problem in the past and might already have some insights to share.
By creating a dedicated thread for this topic, we can focus on this specific issue, and it will also serve as a valuable resource for others who might need information on this in the future.
