No work saved after OOWriter quits or closes accidentally

Issues installing under the Mac OSX - X11 - Aqua
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AlexandrosV
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Joined: Sun Dec 18, 2016 4:57 pm

No work saved after OOWriter quits or closes accidentally

Post by AlexandrosV »

I am working on OpenOffice 4.1.1 on a MacOS Sierra 10.12.1.
The following happened twice in the last week, so i thought I look around but could not find relevant info.

I have been working for a few hours on an .odt file that I have created some days ago.
At some point OO disappeared, quip unexpectedly or I pressed some accidental and unfortunate combination of keys (can't be 100% certain).
Tried to reopen, was told that an instance was already running by a user (me), but couldn't find it, was also asked if I wanted to really open for editing or just to read, so I chose just to read (last time I had chosen to edit but could not find my latest work). So the window for recovery comes up, i press for it to start, it is successful, a document only for reading appears, but the document that is recovered does not include the work I have done during the day at all, i.e. no work of toady is saved on the .odt file.

Now, I entered TimeMachine which is supposed to save everything every hour, and I found the snapshot of my computer at 15:03, half an hour before the problem arose. And the file I found was as if never opened today, i.e. on the "last opened" column it stated "yesterday 11:28".

From my understanding oo writer saves automatically every now and then, and Time Machine is also there to use, but I could not use to my advantage any of the two.
I feel I am not looking properly or in the right place...
Does anyone have an idea?

[Sorry if the Subject or Content is vague or not helpful, am new to forum so any tips and hints are welcome!]
Alexandros
Open Office 4.1.1 on MacOS Sierra 10.12.1
John_Ha
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Re: No work saved after OOWriter quits or closes accidentall

Post by John_Ha »

Welcome to the forum.

See [Tutorial] How to find and un-delete Writer temporary files for instructions on how to identify and un-delete the temporary files Writer wrote while you were editing the file, and then deleted. Depending on how you have AOO set up you may find (some of?) your work in the temporary files.
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.
AlexandrosV
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun Dec 18, 2016 4:57 pm

Re: No work saved after OOWriter quits or closes accidentall

Post by AlexandrosV »

First of all, John_Ha,
Thanks for the quick reply.
I must say that I checked this link but got the impression that this did not have information for Macs. I'll check again!
Alexandros
Open Office 4.1.1 on MacOS Sierra 10.12.1
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RoryOF
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Re: No work saved after OOWriter quits or closes accidentall

Post by RoryOF »

From memory PhotoRec is available for free download for Macs.
Apache OpenOffice 4.1.15 on Xubuntu 22.04.4 LTS
John_Ha
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Re: No work saved after OOWriter quits or closes accidentall

Post by John_Ha »

Macs will be very similar to Windows - just check which paths Writer uses by Preferences > OpenOffice > Paths ...

You say you were editing a saved .odt file, so open a .odt file and check to see where the temporary files go and what they are called. Search for deleted temporary files in that folder.

I have updated the Tutorial with more Mac/Linux help.
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.
AlexandrosV
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun Dec 18, 2016 4:57 pm

Re: No work saved after OOWriter quits or closes accidentall

Post by AlexandrosV »

Thank you both, will try.
Good day,
al
Alexandros
Open Office 4.1.1 on MacOS Sierra 10.12.1
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