not reproducible here.

I assume errornously chose the page-reference instead of the reference-text.

E.g. The number shown is not the number of the footnote, but the page number of
the page the footnote is part of.

Please report back whether this is the problem.

No, the problem remains.
I am attaching a document which highlights the problem.

Created attachment 14014 [details]
example showing incorrectly labeled references

To get a quick demo of why this is a bug, open the attached file, and click the 
1 in "1 <--reference".

This will take you to the footnote labeled 2. This is because the (automaticaly 
assigned) number of the footnotenote changed when another note was inseted above 
it, but the reference to the note did not also update itself to reflect this 
change.

No. It is exactly what I assumed. You didn't insert a reference to the
footnote's number, but to the page number the footnote is part of.

So your text could read "See comments in the footnote on page <reference>"

but not "See comments in the footnote numbered <reference>"

To insert the right reference to the number of the footnote, choose
Insert|Reference and in the Format-section don't use the default "Page", but use
"Reference".

resolving worksforme.

Sorry, yes, I incorrectly made that example document, as you spotted.

I am including a new example document showing the problem with referencees 
showing footnote numbers instead of page numbers.

In this document there is a reference '2' which takes me to footnote 3. This is 
not because of page numbers - footnote 3 is not on page 2, it is on page 17.

I created this document as before, by making a footnote, referencing it and then 
forcing the note to change it's number by creating another before it.

Created attachment 14015 [details]
fixed example document

.

Reassigned to MRU

For some reason the field's display doesn't get updated. Just press <F9> or
choose "Tools|Update -> Fields" and the field will be updated and will show the
correct number.

confirming.

MRU->OS: odd, normally, automatic update of the references to footnotes has no
problem. But in this case, it does not work. Maybe the reference is too far aeay
from the footnote... ;-)

Can't be fixed for OO 2.0. Target now "OO later".

I was able to replicate the bug with Open Office 1.l on a Linux OS and with Open
Office 1.4 on a Windows XP OS. The bug seems to be limited to cross references
(created using reference format) to footnotes (created using the automatic
label). I am including a set of modified replication steps which stresses this: 

To replicate the bug:

1 – In an open office text document create a footnote using Insert --> Footnote.
Use automatic label to create the footnote. This would create a footnote labeled
1. Call this footnote A.
2 – Create a reference to the footnote A, below the footnote using Insert -->
Cross-reference. Cross reference should be of format ‘reference’. This would
create a cross reference to footnote labeled 1.
3 – Using steps 1 and 2 create a second footnote above footnote A.
This would create a footnote labeled 1 above footnote A. Footnote A would be
relabeled 2. Ideally it would be expected that the cross reference to footnote A
would also be relabeled 2, but it continues to be labeled 1.

Here is a scenario in which this bug can be a major headache: You are
constructing a text document and have created hundreds of footnotes (using
automatic labeling) and cross references to these footnotes (using the reference
format). Now you create another footnote (using automatic labeling) at the very
top of the document. The cross reference to all the other footnotes would now
have to be adjusted/ relabeled manually. This will be very tiresome.

Reset assigne to the default "issues@openoffice.apache.org".

Reset assigne to the default "issues@openoffice.apache.org".