Alfresco Community 4.2.f install problem. Please help

[markrwells]

I have been working on this for a couple weeks now and the recurring issues are driving me crazy. So any help is greatly appreciated. 

OK, the basics for the server are:

Ubuntu 14.04
openjdk 7 jdk is loaded
whereis java and javac work

I have tried 2 different ways with same result.  1. load Alfresco installer straight to server which includes problem and 2. load Libreoffice to server first, then load alfresco installer.  the problem persists no matter what order items are loaded.

whereis soffice works and reports version.

load alfresco installer.  Select Y for all or Select N for Java and LibreOffice doesn't matter. Same problem results.

run alfresco start.

go to web page.  Alfresco and Share both load and run. 

Upload a Word Doc to a new site document library.  Upload a jpeg and upload a pdf file. 

PDF and JPEG can be viewed in the browser and have a thumbnail. 

The Word Doc does not have a thumbnail and cannot be previewed in the browser. 

Now here is the fun part.  Erase everything, start over from scratch, load everything on to the server then use the BITNAMI Alfresco installer instead of the default Alfresco installer. 

Results: all files uploaded to the document repository work fine just like they are suppose to.

Now why don't I just use the BITNAMI install? because the Alfresco Workdesk won't load to the BITNAMI version and I need Workdesk. 

Seems like there has to be a simple answer for this.  The alfresco installer should just work. It should not have this problem right out of the box so to say.  

[markrwells]

So I went and rebuilt the server back to a clean install. After the install was done I loaded the six libraries that are missing (libice, libsm, libxt, etc…).  I then loaded the Alfresco Community 4.2.f installer.  The Word Docs do not work and cannot be previewed. 

So I erased the server and started again with a fresh copy, but this time I loaded 4.2.c.  Now when I upload a Word Doc I do not get a thumbnail but the preview works fine. 

there is definitely something that has changed in the installer or version of alfresco. because this never seemed to happen when I was running 3.4.x or 4.1. 

[markrwells]

So I decided to go back to Ubuntu 12.04 since I knew that worked in the past.  I installed 12.04, updated the missing lib files.  Tried 1 install with Openjdk-7-jdk and one without (same result), installed Alfresco and looked at results. 

Alfresco 4.2.c under 12.04 - thumbnails and word doc preview all work fine for each file type including html files.  BUT when you edit in google docs, it fails to save it back to alfresco.

Alfresco 4.2.f under 12.04 - No thumbnails, No document Preview BUT google docs edits and saves file as expected. 

Alfresco 4.2.d and 5.0 are the same as 4.2.f

SO i have to ask… is there a version of Alfresco that should just install and work? Can anyone comment about what is going on? 

[sscbrian]

4.2e and 5.0a install and work for me both on Windows and on Linux (SUSE).  4.2f I can't get to work at all on either platform (I can't get as far as you, I'm never able to get it to run at all).  I'd try 5.0a, 4.2f in my experience is a trainwreck…

[mrogers]

Seems strange that you are having problems that don't seem to have been reported by anyone else.

But since alfresco seems to be running it is probably just a config problem connecting to libra office.

There  was recently another breaking change in interface to google docs so its surprising that that is works without update.   

[markrwells]

I believe this is most likely right.  The question is why.  I am not using a special version of ubuntu.  I am not loading anything on to it that is not suppose to be there.  I am running the Alfresco installer as root so there should be no conflicts with what gets installed.  but yet, all the versions from 4.2.d and up have the problems and versions 4.2.c and below tend to be ok except for the google docs issue. 

And as I said before, the Bitnami Alfresco 4.2.f installer works exactly like it is suppose to.  So I either need to find out what config issue is causing the libre office problem or I need to know what configs to change so that Bitnami's apache-tomcat folder name can be changed to just tomcat without causing tomcat to crash.