Recovering documents after AOO update

Issues with installing under all versions of MS Windows
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Moriah
Posts: 2
Joined: Sat Oct 21, 2017 2:12 am

Recovering documents after AOO update

Post by Moriah »

Hello,

My Open Office just updated to 4.3 with no warning and I had several unsaved documents I was working on. How do I recover them? Thank you.
Open Office 4.3 on Windows 10
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robleyd
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Joined: Mon Aug 19, 2013 3:47 am
Location: Murbko, Australia

Re: recovering documents after OO update

Post by robleyd »

G'day, and welcome to the community forum.

OpenOffice doesn't roll out updates - you have to install a newer version rather than updating; and there is no version 4.3 - the most recent version ( a few days ago) is 4.1.4 and there is a 4.2.0 currently in development, probably as a beta version.

When you say "just updated to 4.3 with no warning" - what exactly happened?
Cheers
David
OS - Slackware 15 64 bit
Apache OpenOffice 4.1.15
LibreOffice 24.2.1.2; SlackBuild for 24.2.1 by Eric Hameleers
Moriah
Posts: 2
Joined: Sat Oct 21, 2017 2:12 am

Re: recovering documents after OO update

Post by Moriah »

The computer restarted and Open Office asked me to re-enter my name and initials and it said it was updating to 4.3 if I am not mistaken. I had several unsaved documents that were open which are gone now--usually with restarts the unsaved docs are still there.

I looked into trying to retrieve them from the backup files but the instructions I've found don't exactly match the layout of my system so I am not sure how to do it--I don't know if it's for an earlier version of windows or what.
Open Office 4.3 on Windows 10
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robleyd
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Joined: Mon Aug 19, 2013 3:47 am
Location: Murbko, Australia

Re: recovering documents after OO update

Post by robleyd »

Ah, now there is more to the tale!
The computer restarted
Unexpectedly? Presumably this is the result of a W10 upgrade - seems to be a lot of reports of this happening. This unexpected shutdown may have damaged your user profile ([Tutorial]The OpenOffice User Profile) as a result of which
Open Office asked me to re-enter my name and initials
You can determine the current version of AOO from Help | About; you can see where the current version keeps backups through Tools | Options | OpenOffice |Paths. This is where you will find backups ff you have checked the option Always create backup copy under Tools |Options | Load/Save | General

If you haven't saved the document(s) there won't be a backup, however. And as the computer has been restarted, there may or may not be a recovery file; you might try doing the following as soon as possible :

Download Recuva (Windows only) or PhotoRec for Win, MacOS, Linux and other OSes (only one needed) and let it do an in-depth recovery of deleted files on your computer. You may get a file containing some or all of your data (or not). Do this as a first priority; other use of the computer may overwrite any existing but deleted files and prevent their recovery. There is no guarantee that you will recover anything useful.
Cheers
David
OS - Slackware 15 64 bit
Apache OpenOffice 4.1.15
LibreOffice 24.2.1.2; SlackBuild for 24.2.1 by Eric Hameleers
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