OpenOffice will randomly and instantly hard lock the kernel. The system doesn't respond to pings or magic-sysrq. This can usually be triggered eventually by mousing through the menus. This might be related to x86-on-AMD64 emulation (this is an AMD64 system), but I have no reason to justify that suspicion other than a gut instinct. This has happened on every kernel version that I can ever remember running with OpenOffice.
I have seen OOo trigger a hang in X (which sometimes goes away after a few minutes), which might look like a kernel bug if your X hardware driver was caught at an unlucky timing. Can you reproduce this problem with the latest X RPMs ?
Well, the system stops responding to pings and ssh doesn't connect, so it's more than just a simple X bug. It hasn't happened it quite some time, but I've been using xorg-x11-server-Xorg-1.1.0-25.fc6 rebuilt for use on FC5, so maybe it was just X driver problem.
OK, it happened again on a FC6 system with 64-bit OOo packages, so I'm no longer inclined to suspect the kernel's 32-on-64 emulation. Blaming it on X (or, more specifically, the R200 driver) seems more reasonable at this point.
In http://people.debian.org/~terpstra/message/20070813.160904.0c8331a8.en.html something similar (OOo hanging Xorg when menu is selected) is reported as fixed in a later xorg release. I still see this with FC6 x86_64's current(?) Build ID: xorg-x11-server 1.1.1-47.10.fc6
Based on the date this bug was created, it appears to have been reported against rawhide during the development of a Fedora release that is no longer maintained. In order to refocus our efforts as a project we are flagging all of the open bugs for releases which are no longer maintained. If this bug remains in NEEDINFO thirty (30) days from now, we will automatically close it. If you can reproduce this bug in a maintained Fedora version (7, 8, or rawhide), please change this bug to the respective version and change the status to ASSIGNED. (If you're unable to change the bug's version or status, add a comment to the bug and someone will change it for you.) Thanks for your help, and we apologize again that we haven't handled these issues to this point. The process we're following is outlined here: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/F9CleanUp We will be following the process here: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/HouseKeeping to ensure this doesn't happen again.
This bug has been in NEEDINFO for more than 30 days since feedback was first requested. As a result we are closing it. If you can reproduce this bug in the future against a maintained Fedora version please feel free to reopen it against that version. The process we're following is outlined here: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/F9CleanUp