Asking File Manager to open a location, but LibreOffice tries to start instead

This began to happen while I was looking for files; with many files open in eight workspaces,
I asked the File Manager to open a Documents folder, but LibreOffice started instead ...
not actually opening.

After closing all the open files and rebooting the ThinkPad T420, as soo as I asked to open
the Documents folder, LibreOffice started again. Any other folder, same effect.

Here's what dmesg | tail says:
dmesg |tail
[ 167.298740] EXT4-fs (sdc1): mounted filesystem with ordered data mode. Opts: (null)
[ 183.252106] kauditd_printk_skb: 62 callbacks suppressed
[ 183.252108] audit: type=1400 audit(1610806930.899:74): apparmor="ALLOWED" operation="open" profile="libreoffice-soffice" name="/usr/share/drirc.d/00-mesa-defaults.conf" pid=2023 comm="soffice.bin" requested_mask="r" denied_mask="r" fsuid=1000 ouid=0
[ 183.253519] audit: type=1400 audit(1610806930.899:75): apparmor="ALLOWED" operation="open" profile="libreoffice-soffice" name="/usr/share/drirc.d/00-mesa-defaults.conf" pid=2023 comm="soffice.bin" requested_mask="r" denied_mask="r" fsuid=1000 ouid=0
[ 183.256608] audit: type=1400 audit(1610806930.903:76): apparmor="ALLOWED" operation="open" profile="libreoffice-soffice" name="/usr/share/drirc.d/00-mesa-defaults.conf" pid=2023 comm="soffice.bin" requested_mask="r" denied_mask="r" fsuid=1000 ouid=0
[ 183.257266] audit: type=1400 audit(1610806930.903:77): apparmor="ALLOWED" operation="open" profile="libreoffice-soffice" name="/usr/share/drirc.d/00-mesa-defaults.conf" pid=2023 comm="soffice.bin" requested_mask="r" denied_mask="r" fsuid=1000 ouid=0
[ 183.266766] audit: type=1400 audit(1610806930.915:78): apparmor="ALLOWED" operation="open" profile="libreoffice-soffice" name="/home/george/.cache/mesa_shader_cache/index" pid=2023 comm="soffice.bin" requested_mask="wrc" denied_mask="wrc" fsuid=1000 ouid=1000
[ 183.267701] audit: type=1400 audit(1610806930.915:79): apparmor="ALLOWED" operation="open" profile="libreoffice-soffice" name="/usr/share/drirc.d/00-mesa-defaults.conf" pid=2023 comm="soffice.bin" requested_mask="r" denied_mask="r" fsuid=1000 ouid=0
[ 190.720673] audit: type=1400 audit(1610806938.373:80): apparmor="ALLOWED" operation="open" profile="libreoffice-soffice" name="/home/george/.local/share/gvfs-metadata/computer:" pid=2022 comm="soffice.bin" requested_mask="r" denied_mask="r" fsuid=1000 ouid=1000
[ 190.742667] audit: type=1400 audit(1610806938.394:81): apparmor="ALLOWED" operation="open" profile="libreoffice-soffice" name="/home/george/.local/share/gvfs-metadata/computer:-49506e55.log" pid=2022 comm="soffice.bin" requested_mask="r" denied_mask="r" fsuid=1000 ouid=1000

sudo cat /usr/share/drirc.d/00-mesa-defaults.conf ==> workarounds for mostly games ...
sudo cat /home/george/.cache/mesa_shader_cache/index ==> a few non-textual symbols; renamed to index.bak
sudo cat /home/george/.local/share/gvfs-metadata/computer: ==> ??meta?IPnUt [????K0Vcaja-icon-view-auto-layoutannotationcaja-icon-view-tighter-layout???[???/??????truefalse ==> ?
File search in root (/) can't find soffice.bin or libreoffice-soffice.