Text Overlays All on One Line in Libreoffice & Other Programs

Support Software & Applications
1

One of our Manjaro installations on a Dell laptop has been having a weird issue with text, and copy-paste. If a paragraph (or even less) of text is copied over from libreoffice-still to an email window (eg: gmail in a chrome browser), the text all stacks up and overlays itself on to one line. It can also happen when copying from document to document, and the text will sometimes overlay itself inside one document as I am typing it, overwriting the next line on top of the first one.

This has been going on for longer than the past two stable updates at least, so I don’t really have a recent update set to refer to. Sometimes I can work around it by copying over one line at a time into the new document or email, and sometimes even that won’t work. The mouse cursor will not even move to the back of the line at that point, it stays stuck in the front of the line of text.

I’ve looked through the forum a few times but have not really seen anything that matches this issue, so I’m posting here. Any ideas as to where to check, or logs/output that could help to debug this? I’m happy to provide any help I can. The system is always up to date with latest upgrades and kernels, etc.

Thanks very much.

2

Are you using Wayland on the PC? Especially KDE + Wayland have been reported to show this or similar issues.

Please, post output of

inxi -Fazy

Also, have a look here:

3

I checked both of those links but they don’t seem to be my issue. I am using xfce and xorg - not using any Wayland settings.
Here’s my inxi -Fazy output:

System:
  Kernel: 5.12.9-1-MANJARO x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 11.1.0 
  parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-5.12-x86_64 
  root=UUID=67501362-d5b8-4606-bd67-414de8d11e45 rw quiet 
  resume=UUID=58d28b12-457c-4d9f-b478-42e03441522d 
  Desktop: Xfce 4.16.0 tk: Gtk 3.24.29 info: xfce4-panel wm: xfwm4 vt: 7 
  dm: LightDM 1.30.0 Distro: Manjaro Linux base: Arch Linux 
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: Dell product: Inspiron 5566 v: N/A serial: <filter> 
  Chassis: type: 10 serial: <filter> 
  Mobo: Dell model: 0YRTVV v: A00 serial: <filter> UEFI: Dell v: 1.7.0 
  date: 05/16/2018 
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT0 charge: 32.4 Wh (100.0%) condition: 32.4/41.4 Wh (78.2%) 
  volts: 16.9 min: 14.8 model: Panasonic DELL 78V9D6A type: Li-ion 
  serial: <filter> status: Full 
  Device-1: hidpp_battery_0 
  model: Logitech Wireless Mobile Mouse MX Anywhere 2 serial: <filter> 
  charge: 100% (should be ignored) rechargeable: yes status: Discharging 
CPU:
  Info: Dual Core model: Intel Core i3-7100U bits: 64 type: MT MCP 
  arch: Amber/Kaby Lake note: check family: 6 model-id: 8E (142) stepping: 9 
  microcode: DE cache: L2: 3 MiB 
  flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx 
  bogomips: 19204 
  Speed: 900 MHz min/max: 400/2400 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 900 2: 1019 
  3: 2330 4: 1676 
  Vulnerabilities: Type: itlb_multihit status: KVM: VMX disabled 
  Type: l1tf 
  mitigation: PTE Inversion; VMX: conditional cache flushes, SMT vulnerable 
  Type: mds mitigation: Clear CPU buffers; SMT vulnerable 
  Type: meltdown mitigation: PTI 
  Type: spec_store_bypass 
  mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl and seccomp 
  Type: spectre_v1 
  mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization 
  Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Full generic retpoline, IBPB: conditional, 
  IBRS_FW, STIBP: conditional, RSB filling 
  Type: srbds mitigation: Microcode 
  Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected 
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel HD Graphics 620 vendor: Dell driver: i915 v: kernel 
  bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:5916 class-ID: 0300 
  Device-2: Realtek Integrated_Webcam_HD type: USB driver: uvcvideo 
  bus-ID: 1-5:3 chip-ID: 0bda:5684 class-ID: 0e02 serial: <filter> 
  Display: x11 server: X.org 1.20.11 driver: loaded: intel 
  unloaded: modesetting alternate: fbdev,vesa resolution: <missing: xdpyinfo> 
  OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel HD Graphics 620 (KBL GT2) v: 4.6 Mesa 21.1.2 
  direct render: Yes 
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Sunrise Point-LP HD Audio vendor: Dell driver: snd_hda_intel 
  v: kernel alternate: snd_soc_skl bus-ID: 00:1f.3 chip-ID: 8086:9d71 
  class-ID: 0403 
  Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.12.9-1-MANJARO running: yes 
  Sound Server-2: JACK v: 0.125.0 running: no 
  Sound Server-3: PulseAudio v: 14.2 running: yes 
Network:
  Device-1: Qualcomm Atheros QCA9565 / AR9565 Wireless Network Adapter 
  vendor: Dell Vostro 3470 driver: ath9k v: kernel port: f040 bus-ID: 01:00.0 
  chip-ID: 168c:0036 class-ID: 0280 
  IF: wlp1s0 state: up mac: <filter> 
  Device-2: Realtek RTL810xE PCI Express Fast Ethernet vendor: Dell 
  driver: r8169 v: kernel port: e000 bus-ID: 02:00.0 chip-ID: 10ec:8136 
  class-ID: 0200 
  IF: enp2s0 state: up speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter> 
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: Qualcomm Atheros type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8 bus-ID: 1-8:7 
  chip-ID: 0cf3:e005 class-ID: e001 
  Report: rfkill ID: hci0 rfk-id: 1 state: down bt-service: enabled,running 
  rfk-block: hardware: no software: yes address: see --recommends 
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 931.51 GiB used: 199.58 GiB (21.4%) 
  SMART Message: Required tool smartctl not installed. Check --recommends 
  ID-1: /dev/sda maj-min: 8:0 vendor: HGST (Hitachi) model: HTS721010A9E630 
  size: 931.51 GiB block-size: physical: 4096 B logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s 
  rotation: 7200 rpm serial: <filter> rev: A3J0 scheme: GPT 
Partition:
  ID-1: / raw-size: 51.76 GiB size: 50.7 GiB (97.95%) used: 15.73 GiB (31.0%) 
  fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1 maj-min: 8:1 
  ID-2: /boot/efi raw-size: 300 MiB size: 299.4 MiB (99.80%) 
  used: 264 KiB (0.1%) fs: vfat dev: /dev/sda4 maj-min: 8:4 
  ID-3: /home raw-size: 870.57 GiB size: 855.91 GiB (98.32%) 
  used: 183.85 GiB (21.5%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda3 maj-min: 8:3 
Swap:
  Kernel: swappiness: 60 (default) cache-pressure: 100 (default) 
  ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 8.89 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2 
  dev: /dev/sda2 maj-min: 8:2 
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 42.0 C mobo: 32.0 C sodimm: SODIMM C 
  Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 0 
Info:
  Processes: 174 Uptime: 45m wakeups: 3 Memory: 5.7 GiB 
  used: 813.4 MiB (13.9%) Init: systemd v: 248 tool: systemctl Compilers: 
  gcc: 11.1.0 Packages: pacman: 1383 lib: 419 Shell: Bash v: 5.1.8 
  running-in: xfce4-terminal inxi: 3.3.04
4

I tried uninstalling and reinstalling libreoffice, but it had no noticeable effect. Seems weird since it happens in more than just libreoffice, and happens most often when copying into an email text window.

5

Is there some setting, or missing/corrupted library or file that might cause this copy-paste text to bunch up and paste all into one line inside a browser email ‘compose’ window? Maybe I’m looking in the wrong place, but not sure where to check. I have had no luck googling this one, nor can I find any thread like it here on the forum.