OO Writer in Kubuntu 10.10 '"freezes" often - sometimes impossible to restore a document.

[Bas Roufs]

Hello Everybody

Ever since the upgrade to Kubuntu 10.10, I am experiencing weird
problems with OpenOffice.org Writer. At least once per week, this
package "freezes" while I am working on a document. This means: in the
middle of some intense working session, the whole system stops working
altogether. At such a moment, I even am not able to "kill" OpenOffice
Writer via Control-Alt-Esc, because the WHOLE system stagnates. Also
commands like CONTROL-ALT-DEL or K-Menu > Leave are not available any
more at such a moment. Konsole is also inaccessible in such a
situation. Even packages aimed at controlling the system activity are
not accessible any more at such a moment. The only remaining option in
such a situation seems simply to unplug my netbook from electricity
delivery. After about a minute, I replug the netbook again, switch it
on in order to return to Kubuntu. After doing so, I go back to the
document I have been working on until it froze- in 9 out of 10 of such
situations, I manage to successfully restore the document and continue
the session. But in about 1 out of 10 situations, the document is
simply not accessible any more. The only option remaining in such a
situation is starting anew, from the previous version of the document.
As a matter of result, several hours of work get lost.
When analysing this unfortunate 10% of problem situations, it  becomes
clear to me that restoring a document is often difficult or impossible
in case I have imported one or more images (photo's or drawings) in
the document: images in formats like .png and .jpeg. Making such
images smaller helps to diminish the crash risk, but not to altogether
eliminate it.
At present, I know only 2 methods to further diminish the impact of the problem:
once per hour making a back-up version of the document in another
folder, under another name
all the time pressing control-s in order to save the latest changes.
However, those 2 methods do not prevent OO writer from "freezing"
amidst a working session. I am really wondering how to get rid of this
freezing problem!

Thanks for your reactions. Respectfully yours,

Bas.