The problem can be reproduced.

Created attachment 77571 [details]
patch for the issue

The root cause for the issue is the memory allocation cost too much time for the operation.
So we need pre-calculated needed memory and pre-reserve enough memory for it.
The time will reduce from 30min to 10s on my Lenovo 9196 desktop machine.

Thanks for your patch. I will review it.

When I review bug i118863 (https://issues.apache.org/ooo/show_bug.cgi?id=118863), I find there are some other related user cases which can get AOO crash or freeze.

Scenario 1
1)New a calc doc.
2)Input 1, 2, 3 in cell A1, A2, A3
3)Set background color for cell A1, A2, A3 as blue, green, red
4)Select A1:A3, and copy
5)Select a whole columnm, such as column E, and paste

AOO need more than 5 minutes to complete this work.
6)undo the paste
AOO also need a lot of time

Scenario 2
1)New a calc doc.
2)Input 1, 2, 3 in cell A1, A2, A3
3)Select A1:A3, and copy
4)Select another whole sheet, such as "sheet2", and paste

AOO will crash


Now Calc supoorts 1,048,576 rows * 1024 columns, which is 1,073,741,824 cells. Pasting with a whole column selected will fill the column. Pasting with a whole sheet selected will fill the sheet, which always casue AOO crash.

I have two suggestions

Solution 1
Disable auto repeat to fill cells when pasting with a whole column/sheet selected. Considering user may not want to repeat to fill the cells when pasting with a whole column/sheet selected, just paste the source data and do not repeat to fill.

Excel has a strange behavior. It will not repeat to fill cells, if the cell numbers in target range is not integer multiple of the source data.
For an example,
Copy A1:A2, Select B1:B10, Ctrl+V -> B1:B10 will be filled
Copy A1:A2, Select B1:B11, Ctrl+V -> Only B1:B2 will be filled
So when pasting with a whole column/sheet selected, sometimes Excel will repeat to fill the whole column/sheet, sometimes it will not.


Solution 2
Set two thresholds, one is for warning user, one is for the limitation.
If number of cells in target range is bigger than warning threshold, Calc will popup a warning message to warn user the potential bad performance. If number of cells in target range is bigger than limitation, Calc will popup a error message to info user the operation can not be completed.

The purpose of Solution 1/Solution 2 is to avoid making Calc crash for careless operation(paste with a whole column/sheet selected).

This is a great patch to improve the performance. But if we change the behavior, the improvement may not useful.

What is your opinion?

I have replicated the bugs in comments 1 and 4 with the following configuration and build:

Apache OpenOffice 4.0.1; AOO401m5(Build:9714) - Rev. 1524958
Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit, Service Pack 1
Intel Core 2 Duo T6600 2.20 GHz, 4GB RAM

I have also found a problem in a somewhat simpler situation:
1.	Create a new sheet.
2.	Merge cells A1 and B1.
3.	Copy cells A1:A2
4.	Click on a column header, e.g. Column E.
5.	Paste.

Result: 
Calc stops responding.

A follow-up test:
1.	Repeat steps 1-2 above only.
2.	Copy cells A1:A2.
3.	Click on a column header, e.g. Column E.
4.	Paste.
Result:
No crash or significant waiting.  Columns E-F are merged.

Comments:
Based on these results and the results of prior comments, it is not necessary to have data in any of the copied cells to initiate the crash.  However, it is necessary to copy and paste both merged cells and unmerged cells  into an entire column in order  initiate a crash. 

Implications:
Any crash is problematic for a user due to the potential to lose unsaved work.  However, it is probably unlikely that a user will try to paste a merged and unmerged cell into an entire selected column.

A correction to my Comment 5...
The steps for "A follow-up test" should read:
1.	Repeat steps 1-2 above only.
2.	Copy cells A1:B1. (vice A1:A2)
3.	Click on a column header, e.g. Column E.
4.	Paste.