[Solved] Can't open a spreadsheet - any options?

Viewbyte · Post by **Viewbyte** » Mon Oct 22, 2012 6:27 pm

Greetings to all,
I'd appreciate some advice.

I'm currently running Open Office 3.4.1 on Windows 7, I've just updated from 3.3 something. The following problem happens with both versions.

I have a very important spreadsheet (it's always the important one of course...) that all of a sudden I can't open. The green loading bar stops about halfway through and I'm left with a blank grey windows frame - no blank cells - nothing. I then have to force quit.
I can create and open other spreadsheets OK.

So it would seem that this particular spreadsheet is corrupt in some way; however...

The odd thing is that this sheet has been backed up in two locations - over the web and on another hard drive. I have multiple versions of the backup - seven in total, going back six months or so, and I can't get into any of them...

I'm sure I've not been backing up corrupt versions because this is a spreadsheet I use frequently before backing up..

I can't post the file as it has confidential data.

Any thoughts before I go and cry in my milk.... : (

Post by **RoryOF** » Mon Oct 22, 2012 6:44 pm

The first thing to do is to delete or rename your User Profile
Tutorial: the User Profile

Normally a corrupt .ods file (or any corrupt OpenOffice format) gives an ASCII filter select box. The fact that you are not getting that, and that all copies of your file do not open, suggests an error with the User Profile. Note that reinstalling OpenOffice does not generate a new user profile. The first restart of OpenOffice after the delete/rename generates a new profile, which cures a large proportion of OpenOffice funnies.

Viewbyte · Post by **Viewbyte** » Mon Oct 22, 2012 8:53 pm

Rory,
Thanks for that - but no joy. I've also got OpenOffice available on a Mac - and the same files transported to that show the same result - partial load then application freeze. So that would suggest to me a problem with the file.

What's leaving me totally confused is the fact I can't open any version I have of this file - going back over six months. Every one seems to be corrupt. And I use the file regularly, so I can't see how I could have been backing up corrupted versions...

Really odd...

Is there any tool / utility that might enable me to repair / force open / resucue any of the data?

Post by **Hagar Delest** » Mon Oct 22, 2012 9:52 pm

Were you saving in native ODF (.ods)? If so, you can try to take the content.xml file and put it in a brand new file (if saved in .ods).
If all the files are corrupted, this seems rather strange indeed. Can't you PM the file to one of us? We can have a look at it privately.

Viewbyte · Post by **Viewbyte** » Tue Oct 23, 2012 12:55 am

Hagar (and Rory) ,
Thanks for your help on this. While I couldn't get the ods to open, I did manage to extract the content.xml file - and with a bit of regex I looked up, deleted the xml tags to leave me with the essential text. Not ideal - but far better than nothing.

Post by **Hagar Delest** » Tue Oct 23, 2012 8:04 am

Great!
That's the power of open file formats: at least you have been able to recover your data.

[Solved] Can't open a spreadsheet - any options?

[Solved] Can't open a spreadsheet - any options?

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