"Either another instance of LibreOffice is accessing your personal settings..."

[Resmarohs]

I have dynamic/changing IP address. It changes after every restart/shutdown.

I had Libre Office open, when my Mac encountered problem and had to be forced to shut down. I turned it back on, opened Libre Office and got this window titled Libre Office 5.1:

"Either another instance of LibreOffice is accessing your personal settings or your personal settings are locked.
Simultaneous access can lead to inconsistencies in your personal settings. Before continuing, you should make sure user [insert my user name] closes LibreOffice on host [ip adress and my ISP provider]

Do you really want to continue?"

First I was scared poopless from seeing words "another instance accessing", but as the IP address displayed resembled one of my own, I performed an experiment.
I made snapshot of my current IP adress, then forcibly shut Mac down one more time, turned it on and opened Libre Office to get another one of those windows.

I compared IP addresses:
The IP address I had before forcibly shutting down was the same the alert window had.

So, is it logical to conclude that when LibreOffice is open and Mac is forcibly shut down, it memorizes the IP address Mac had during shut down, then keeps it in memory and when Mac is turned on again with new IP address, Libre Office still holds to that previous IP address?

And that the first time it happened, where I couldn't compare IPs, it was the same issue - as I have not encountered this problem ever again after that time. Chance of anything malicious going in should therefore be big fat zero?

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Based on what you've reported, the odds are strongly in favor of your explanation being correct: LibreOffice is simply confused. Nothing malicious is going on.

 

[dwig]

...
So, is it logical to conclude that when LibreOffice is open and Mac is forcibly shut down, it memorizes the IP address Mac had during shut down, then keeps it in memory ...

Well, of course it DOES NOT keep the IP address in "memory". Memory is totally wiped in the shutdown/restart process.

What is likely happening is the LO is recording the current IP address in a temporary file as part of its set of configuration files. A file that it uses to temporarily hold info about the current session or document. When you force quit LO, it can't delete that temporary session/document file. When you relaunch LO it will see the orphaned session/document config file from the previous session. The LO alert appears if the current IP address differs from the one in the orphaned session/document config file since the IP address mismatch could indicate either a file or session in use by another user on the network.

I've seen similar warnings with MS Word and WordPerfect when a document isopen at the time of the forced quit or crash. When you relaunch the app and try to reopen the document a warning may appear asking whether to use the original document or the temp backup left undeleted as a result of the force quit.