Recovered files open blank, with correct word count shown

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Frankensense
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Recovered files open blank, with correct word count shown

Post by Frankensense »

Hi, I lost a big file with a lot of work in it. I tried several recovery programs to try to get it back; Scalpel seemed to work best, and I got a bunch of files. When opened, OpenOffice tries to recover them but the page is empty. At the bottom though, it says the word and letter counts, which look right, even though they aren't shown.

I tried renaming odt to zip and extracting, but it doesn't look like that xml file they mention isn't in there, or anything with my text in it.

Am I hooped?

Thanks

Edited subject line for clarity, floris v, moderator
Last edited by floris v on Mon Mar 22, 2021 10:33 am, edited 2 times in total.
Reason: Removed heated debate icon, floris v, moderator
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floris v
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Re: Recovered files

Post by floris v »

The actual text in a Writer document sits in the content.xml file. If that file gets damaged, or even deleted, your work is lost. We have some damaged .odt repair wizards here, who might be able to save something, but don't hold your breath.

Always make the subject line of your post as descriptive as you can get it, without turning it into a novel. That will attract the right people.
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Re: Recovered files open blank, with correct word count show

Post by robleyd »

How did you "lose" the file?

Have you tried the suggestions in [Tutorial] How to find and un-delete AOO/LO temporary files?
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Frankensense
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Re: Recovered files open blank, with correct word count show

Post by Frankensense »

I was deleting old files and went too far.

Here's a link to recovered files: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/czj6x69va9u5 ... juNla?dl=0
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RoryOF
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Re: Recovered files open blank, with correct word count show

Post by RoryOF »

Almost (Always?) invariably, if the file is displayed in Writer as blank, or a repeated series of characters (usually ####) then that file is damaged beyond repair. The best hope is to recover a deleted or hidden working copy, which may contain all, or most of he information, or even none.

In what format was the file Saved?
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robleyd
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Re: Recovered files open blank, with correct word count show

Post by robleyd »

Is there anything in the Recycle Bin?

Note that a Writer file with one character in it will be about 8.3Kb so any file you recover that is smaller is likely to be useless.
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Re: Recovered files open blank, with correct word count show

Post by RoryOF »

There is nothing in the two smaller files and the one of your recovered files I downloaded indicated that it was a damaged multipart archive; I have not at present time to download the others or to attempt an archive repair, but I hold out little hope.
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Re: Recovered files open blank, with correct word count show

Post by RoryOF »

One thought: If the words and letter counts are correct, and the file shows blank, perhaps the text colour has set to White, so it doesn't show on the screen. Try dragging cursor across an area and see if there is a word or character count shown for the selection. If so, change your font colour or your paper colour to reveal text.
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Re: Recovered files open blank, with correct word count show

Post by floris v »

The file content.xml is missing in the archive in both links, so there's nothing to be saved.
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Re: Recovered files open blank, with correct word count show

Post by RoryOF »

floris v wrote:The file content.xml is missing in the archive in both links, so there's nothing to be saved.
Yes, I found that to be the case in the two smaller files (5.3 KB). The larger (19.2 MB) files are in the Odt-0--0 folder on the dropbox link. The one of these I tried was an "incomplete archive".
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Re: Recovered files open blank, with correct word count show

Post by John_Ha »

Frankensense wrote:I was deleting old files and went too far.
In that case it should be pretty easy to find the deleted file itself - if it was MyDocs\fred.odt just look for the deleted MyDocs\\fred.odt. Is it still in the Recycle bin?

Only if you can't find it do you need to look for temporary files or deleted temporary, AutoRecovery etc files.

I examined the files from the Odt-0--0 folder on the dropbox link like the 19.2 MB 00000001.odt. This file looks like it is a recovered deleted file where much of the file has later been overwritten. No user data is recoverable. The other 19.2MB files in the folder were similar - no user data.

The other two 6kB files have no content.xml - there is no user data. These are consistent with a user shutting down the PC before AOO has finished writing the file.

There is a known bug in AOO, hopefully now being addressed, where AOO does not prevent a PC shutdown during the period during which AOO is writing a .odt file - see Test 4.5_3 at Issue 126869 - Analysis Task: Lost/Corrupted Documents after Save/Shutdown

Have you tried everything in [Tutorial] How to find and un-delete AOO temporary files which gives detailed instructions on how to

a) use Previous Versions (W7 and later) to recover previous versions of the file (is there something similar on MacOS and Linux?);

b) recover your file as it was when you last opened or saved it, or as it was when it was last saved with AutoRecovery;

c) find previous versions of the file in the folder it is located in, but which have since been deleted;

d) find any temporary files AOO wrote while you were editing the file but which have not yet been deleted;

e) un-delete the temporary files AOO wrote while you were editing the file, and then deleted. d) and e) will recover your file as it was when you last opened or you last saved it.

Act quickly - the longer you wait the more likely any temporary files are to be overwritten.
Frankensense wrote:At the bottom though, it says the word and letter counts, which look right, even though they aren't shown.
Word and character count are stored separately in meta.xml.

Code: Select all

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<office:document-meta xmlns:grddl="http://www.w3.org/2003/g/data-view#" xmlns:meta="urn:oasis:names:tc:opendocument:xmlns:meta:1.0" xmlns:office="urn:oasis:names:tc:opendocument:xmlns:office:1.0" xmlns:ooo="http://openoffice.org/2004/office" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" office:version="1.3">
	<office:meta>
		<meta:creation-date>2021-01-24T12:34:00</meta:creation-date>
		<dc:date>2021-02-11T22:58:17.824000000</dc:date>
		<meta:editing-duration>P9DT19H57M25S</meta:editing-duration>
		<meta:editing-cycles>750</meta:editing-cycles>
		<meta:generator>LibreOffice/7.0.4.2$Windows_X86_64 LibreOffice_project/dcf040e67528d9187c66b2379df5ea4407429775</meta:generator>
		<meta:document-statistic meta:table-count="0" meta:image-count="7" meta:object-count="0" meta:page-count="2" meta:paragraph-count="487" meta:word-count="29815" meta:character-count="163403" meta:non-whitespace-character-count="133900"/>
	</office:meta>
</office:document-meta>
Are you using AOO? or LO? meta.xml was generated by LibreOffice on 24 January 2021.
LO 6.4.4.2, Windows 10 Home 64 bit

See the Writer Guide, the Writer FAQ, the Writer Tutorials and Writer for students.

Remember: Always save your Writer files as .odt files. - see here for the many reasons why.
Frankensense
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Re: Recovered files open blank, with correct word count show

Post by Frankensense »

I am using OpenOffice, LibreOffice, Abiword, Geany, Notepad++, Wordpad, Office, and more, to try to recover this file. Originally I was using LibreOffice.

I think it's probably useless. Thanks for your help.
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