ASCII Filter Options--File Transformed into Gibberish

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Beee
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ASCII Filter Options--File Transformed into Gibberish

Post by Beee »

Hello;
I have read through many posts about this ASCII Filter Options message, but I have to ask, just in case there is any difference in my issue, and any hope for my document.
During a previous session on my laptop, upon inserting my flash drive, I received a message saying something about how there were corrupted files in my flash drive that needed repairing, and did I want to repair them? This has never happened before. I chose "repair". It took a moment and then told me the repair was complete. I went about my business with some image files.
Then, the next day or so, I plugged in my flash drive again and tried to open an .odt document that I hadn't touched in over a month and instead of opening the document, the ASCII Filter Options message popped up. Clueless, I hit "ok" and was astonished to find my document transformed into gibberish and hashtags. The pages aren't all full, there are just a few lines on some pages, while the document had previously been full of words. I checked another .odt document, and found the same thing had happened. I checked another one, and it was fine. So far, I only know of the two that have been affected. One I can manage without, but the other one is the result of much work.
Is there any, any way to retrieve it?
I read all through the "[Tutorial] How to find and un-delete AOO/LO temporary files" information just in case it would help, even though my files were not deleted. I downloaded Recuva, and did actually see my document there, twice, (though they're shown to be .docx, which is odd) but when I clicked them, I still received the ASCII message. And on the Recuva screen that shows recovered files, it says the files have been overwritten with other files, one of which is a .jpg! I don't even know what that means or how that could be, especially as the file size says it is the same as though the file possesses all its former information.
It is a large file, I think. 616 KB.
I tried something about a zip, but got rather lost. I don't have much computer expertise.
(And I don't seem to have any location called C:Users\xxxxx\AppData etc. As soon as I get to the "AppData" bit, nothing comes up.)

Please help. I have learned a lot through my researching this problem, about backing up files; so that's good for the future. But is there any way to restore my file now?
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RusselB
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Re: ASCII Filter Options--File Transformed into Gibberish

Post by RusselB »

Welcome to the Forums
Regretfully, based on the information you have provided, your files are no longer recoverable, as some (or all) of the data required to recover your file(s) has been over-written with another file, a .jpg, which is a kind of picture file.
If you want one of us to see if we have any luck at recovering the data from your file (please don't hold your breath), then you need to upload/attach your file(s).
See How to attach a document here
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If you believe your problem has been resolved, please go to your first post in this topic, click the Edit button and add [Solved] to the beginning of the Subject line.
Beee
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Re: ASCII Filter Options--File Transformed into Gibberish

Post by Beee »

Thank you.
Yes, please, if there is anything you can try in order to recover it, I would be grateful. I uploaded it to the MediaFire site, so here is the link: https://www.mediafire.com/file/282gqxz8 ... r.odt/file

(Also, I was mistaken in my first post: the file that was recovered with Recuva, that was overwritten with the .jpg, was actually a third file that was corrupted, not the one I am anxious about. A previous document with almost the same name. So maybe my other document is not overwritten...?)
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RoryOF
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Re: ASCII Filter Options--File Transformed into Gibberish

Post by RoryOF »

I doubt there is any usable content in that file [read: I couldn't get anything]; I suggest you try the methods described in
viewtopic.php?f=74&t=84056#p390605
as soon as may be.
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John_Ha
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Re: ASCII Filter Options--File Transformed into Gibberish

Post by John_Ha »

Your file is unfortunately complete garbage and there is no recoverable data in it.
 Edit: See later.

I now believe the file is the complete .odt file except the first part has been cut off. It isn't "a lot of gibberish followed by the first 3kB of the file". 
It looks like it is a memory dump of binary gibberish apart from the very last bit which appears to be the start of your file so I deleted all the preceding junk and saved just the last bit. The saved .odt file was only 3kB (a .odt file with just one word is about 10kB so something is seriously wrong with it!) and, although opening it with 7-ZIP shows the file directory and file names, the files themselves are not there and an error message is given if I attempt to extract them. No user data is present. A 2.25 MB content.xml suggests it was something like 300,000 words.
Clipboard02.png
Your only options are detailed in the tutorial you have already seen, namely [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.

If you cannot follow the instructions ask someone with more PC skills to help you. Act quickly - the longer you wait the more likely any temporary files are to be overwritten.

If you cannot find anything using the tutorial and you don't have a backup nothing else can be done.

In answer to your questions:
Beee wrote: ... it says the files have been overwritten with other files, one of which is a .jpg! I don't even know what that means or how that could be ...
Files are not deleted - they are still there but are marked "Available to be used" - it's why they can be undeleted. You have later saved a .jpg file and it has been saved where your deleted file was and has overwritten it.
Beee wrote:I tried something about a zip, but got rather lost. I don't have much computer expertise.
A .odt file is actually a ZIP file and can be opened with a ZIP utility. Alternatively, if you rename fred.odt to fred.zip you can double click fred.zip and see what is inside.
Beee wrote: I don't seem to have any location called C:Users\xxxxx\AppData etc. As soon as I get to the "AppData" bit, nothing comes up.
If your username on the PC is Sarah**, then you are looking for C:Users\Sarah\AppData. AppData and its subfolders are all hidden files - see the tutorial and switch on View hidden files.

** Not an inspired guess: Some of the meta data said the file was created by Sarah D...t.

A thought. Have you looked in your Recycle bin? With luck you may have deleted an older version of the file and it is still in the Recycle Bin.
Last edited by John_Ha on Sat May 15, 2021 4:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Remember: Always save your Writer files as .odt files. - see here for the many reasons why.
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Re: ASCII Filter Options--File Transformed into Gibberish

Post by John_Ha »

Beee

Another thought. If you were repeatedly saving the .odt file to the USB memory it may be possible to find some deleted .odt files on it so do a deep search of it.
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Remember: Always save your Writer files as .odt files. - see here for the many reasons why.
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Re: ASCII Filter Options--File Transformed into Gibberish

Post by John_Ha »

And yet another thought.

A recent thread in the LibreOffice forum How can I repair a corrupted .odt file ? mentioned Repair OpenOffice Writer Document ONLINE. The file in question was truncated and they were able to recover data up to where the file was truncated, something I am unable to do.

I don't think it will work for your file because your file was about 600kB and when I delete the junk it is only about 3kB long so there is no data in it - it has been truncated very short! Their file was, say, 500 kB and the damaged file was 450kB, so they could get most of the content back.

But they offer a $99 service where one of their technicians will analyse your file. There is a "much less than 1% chance" this might find something in the gibberish before the start of your truncated file.

NB I used their on-line preview service to see if they could recover anything from your file and they said they could not. If they can recover anything, they show you the first line of each paragraph they recover to prove it works, and charge you to get all the text back.
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Remember: Always save your Writer files as .odt files. - see here for the many reasons why.
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Re: ASCII Filter Options--File Transformed into Gibberish

Post by John_Ha »

And another thought. Stop using the USB stick.

When I re-read the LO post it occurred to me that your content.xml is being reported as being 2.25 MB.

Now, the ZIP file only reports the proper length of a file after it has been written. So, content.xml must have been completely written to the USB stick.

I therefore wonder if the corruption on the memory stick has caused the wrong data to be associated with the file name. The rest of your file may be on the stick immediately after where your GHG in Order.odt file ends.

It would need a utility which could read it - I cannot immediately think of one. :(
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Remember: Always save your Writer files as .odt files. - see here for the many reasons why.
Beee
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Re: ASCII Filter Options--File Transformed into Gibberish

Post by Beee »

Thanks, everyone, for your help and direction. Using Recuva to do a deep scan of my flash drive (is that the kind of "deep search" you were talking about, John_Ha?), I did find some older, deleted versions of my file. So I have more now than I had yesterday. This is wonderful, though I still long for the amount of info that was never deleted. So I am wanting to make absolutely certain no repair of the corrupted file is possible.

I am trying to understand: You found 3KB's worth of the true file amidst the junk, but since one word takes up 10KB of an .odt file, 3KB is pretty much nothing? And how can it be possible to see that it was about 300,000 words (which is accurate!), without the words still being in existence? (This is agony.)

And in your last post, what is the significance of the ZIP reporting the file length after it's been written? And the content.xml being completely written to the stick? And what does it mean if the wrong data is associated with the file name?
John_Ha wrote:The rest of your file may be on the stick immediately after where your GHG in Order.odt file ends.
Are you saying somehow that the true file may be there somewhere on the USB stick, but in some unknown place?

Sorry, so many questions! But I hardly know how to proceed because I hardly know what I'm talking about. Thank you so much for any light you can shed.
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Re: ASCII Filter Options--File Transformed into Gibberish

Post by John_Ha »

Beee wrote:Using Recuva to do a deep scan of my flash drive (is that the kind of "deep search" you were talking about, John_Ha?
Correct.
Beee wrote:I am wanting to make absolutely certain no repair of the corrupted file is possible.
There is absolutely no user content in the GHG in Order.odt file you posted.
Beee wrote:You found 3KB's worth of the true file amidst the junk, but since one word takes up 10KB of an .odt file, 3KB is pretty much nothing?
Correct. See image below.
Beee wrote:And how can it be possible to see that it was about 300,000 words (which is accurate!), without the words still being in existence? (This is agony.)
I guessed 300,000 words based on a large file of mine and the 2.25 MB size content.xml should be. content.xlm is only a hundred bytes or so.
Beee wrote: And in your last post, what is the significance of the ZIP reporting the file length after it's been written? And the content.xml being completely written to the stick? And what does it mean if the wrong data is associated with the file name?
If content.xml has a file size in the image above it means that content.xml must have been written to the USB stick. If the PC is killed half way through writing content.xml the size is reported as zero.
Beee wrote:
John_Ha wrote:The rest of your file may be on the stick immediately after where your GHG in Order.odt file ends.
Are you saying somehow that the true file may be there somewhere on the USB stick, but in some unknown place?
Yes. I am wondering - guessing - if the situation is like below. The GHG in Order.odt file you have is junk followed by the start of the file. I wonder if the proper file is as shown. The problem is, if that is the case, I don't know how to get the stuff which has been truncated off the memory stick, not where it ends. Also, and very important, there were three of four "start of files" at the end of the file you posted and I took the last one. One of the other "start of file" reported the file had no tables, images or objects, 311 pages, 5,621 paragraphs, 263,040 words and 1,461,733 characters. It must be heartbreaking to know that and know none of it is there.

Your best bet is to follow the tutorial and look for deleted temporary files:
When you open an existing .odt file [as you did], Writer takes a copy of the .odt file as it was when opened and saves the copy of the .odt file as a temporary file with a name like sv2ju21c.tmp. This is the file you are trying to recover.

You are therefore looking for files with names something like C:\Users\xxxxxx\AppData\Local\Temp\sv2ju1mk.tmp\sv2ju21c.tmp.

Note that it is very unusual for a folder to be called C:\Users\xxxxxx\AppData\Local\Temp\sv2ju1mk.tmp, with a " . " in the folder name, but this is what Writer does.
Attachments
Possible map of memory stick contents
Possible map of memory stick contents
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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.
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Re: ASCII Filter Options--File Transformed into Gibberish

Post by RoryOF »

John_Ha wrote:
Beee wrote:And how can it be possible to see that it was about 300,000 words (which is accurate!), without the words still being in existence? (This is agony.)
I guessed 300,000 words based on a large file of mine and the 2.25 MB size content.xml should be. content.xlm is only a hundred bytes or so.
Beee wrote:
For what it's worth, I find English non technical text (i.e. few or no long technical words) uses 5.6 characters (including the dividing space) per word. This is based on a check just now of the Maudes' translation of War and Peace (the original English translation). I usually, for ease of calculation, reckon on 5.5 chars to a word. So one would expect a file containing 550,000 characters to be close to 100,000 words in length.
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Re: ASCII Filter Options--File Transformed into Gibberish

Post by John_Ha »

Beee

I think your only options are:

1 Search for deleted temporary files on the hard drive using the tutorial. These will be files named something like C:\Users\xxxxxx\AppData\Local\Temp\sv2ju1mk.tmp\sv2ju21c.tmp where xxxxxx is your username. You need to switch on hidden files to see them. Did Windows Restore Previous Versions have a copy of the file? It probably did not because you were saving to USB stick and not to the hard disk.

2 Try to recover earlier, deleted files from the USB memory stick. These will be named GHG in Order.odt.

3 Probably less likely to succeed, but a possibility, try to get the data following the start of the file (image above) off the USB stick to see if you can reconstruct the file. A quick check of some .odt files shows that the end_of_file is always META-INF/manifest.xmlPK so you will know where the file ends.

Below shows the end of a typical .odt file. The "gibberish" is the ZIPped content followed by metadata describing how the ZIP file is formed

Code: Select all

hûL¡.ùR&%—á#.üµˆÿÚ²ìä³Âu±žß,–cx/’…!)ŸS%H©J.D.èT?•Y.´in.ƒdyÓ%.³|w^š.$>¯./Èbr~4Õð>ãÀQTQtrÌ7sÉÏqŽ—³ûe›OÆã78†¿f£.œœJ‘..khçdºæ?"u§¸¢•@UŽ®.ž].Ž…§ê.ëD¨jðº.¦(ª–²y2..Ù‘:F.É.PÎÁ5..ySJ.nš¥z&û-8.àp.héf‰É.ð+\\.¯è.DÉ»è.W2ÖõÂ@žd˜ËP„-É¿~bL5>}¹M3Ï€sÖgû6Ñóeà..ýÃ.«"«‰î.¬ç«®¾.§.”MA{ØfôäÜäv8•“ÝÞ=Y.=®P.¼FüWó¥[á}©.âùúÛÛ .3|[+tG.ŹP%œF.#¨mw‡¼Ê.Duiå×kÈÒ9ìq¸6½ú¹..S¸{€x‰]ú.¿¤R³Æ‘9íéØ2êÏi–oÖgjïe²ôŠ¦-ƒÊtÏFRg»LŸ©·Ìål¯G[w¯. ÏVëï§Cò³îÊÖÃÅ'to•Éµê¡.-×É.»Í£q7ùï“ý·’¦;<ê6fFl§Sî.¶Îª3.—.ë³0êš©z¦I.çÔÁô3€ÔnX#tËò.§ÿjJ0`¤ø€©a×! .À/Û«\S„ò³&.ΕX–³fê.O—dì.BVPE!¶=W´.2Ô5»R~Ôò‰.°.Ùj0g”²#ÎÂíI.Ö...gñ¶.ÖùU<¿}³.I..e..4¡ÃÙ»i Žá9.éÅ«B:™ÇÉ./Ò.¥‡´%¼8ÒËW†´n.{€n..œÕø‹Ã|óÊ`^-nFpî(. 5áÅ‘^½2¤oo×#Hw”.ÒšðâH¿yUH/æñÒ..º”.Ò–ðâHß¾2¤.kÿqèR.Hk‹#½~eH¯üiÚ!.p^}“$}÷Ê`¾½.ù£.€Ö„.G:‰_.ÔËy|ã?.]J.jKx.Ô}’‹¿¼ê×aÊÊœì.®¾TÏZBhš=yÛ?R¤”.ýIÛí.ùÚ.}nù.etJ¿ÛàÚ:1rôë¦.¢.–}.=h5«.ŒÕ[.wŽnþÈÇ.Rž}‘).....3·ƒæ*Hü.Zñ.òN.ß2£.+ý&Ìéœ.£c„t(Hç14R¦\=9—Õ¥óœNIë^ÑÉ..È$ih.cý™w¿'_ÓJ4.৚†úqŽ.¸açäÿM-H.N.H‚Ô#ã™óÊÌ×[R.ß):.ë÷wP.Iàa.¨¢(G’É×å.¸ÓƉ‰PEØcݾ\ÜÍoG.c–.ã‹.q"ßû.7e\pDÄÙ·´‘ïhþ.ÎÛO]Œ=3ê=Œ3;Þq’uï.cùÛÇaÜsá%nQÝÁ.Ïoã7....o¶'‡o¹Zúù´¶n+îL.$`ùx„Ë9“Bü.Ýt=..6Ÿ„.zì..%»'°†¡Æ¶³oü#žÇ‰Ó×·ï¾@Qð.ůž†h..ð \>Tñ± L:½.^.ÒzœCr·Ž¹ú¾{Á¤Í.«_.û†ÄçâvS{õ¹LÇjäîÔ....iÐë.ÿëL{wç=Ìb¯¿.Fíƒ.7çe'.\™šúß¡».öÕ=ßv—öÎóœ!˜÷Býìç<"ºø0ÉEØ“c´zæH¨ì.ÑåF™R.~—‹.–îÕ.aÆ.§Bé.i±á\Õ+IbÎv‡ÿaÆrWŠznö.Ä.—U.Ú‘.Ší.Îæ;ü.0Eþÿ¬öð7PK...»ñ¸î...ì6..PK........5PtR................manifest.rdfÍ“Ínƒ0.„ï<…eÎØ@/..r(ʹjŸÀ5†X./òš.Þ¾Ž“VQ¤ªêŸÔã®F3ߎ´›ía.È‹²¨ÁT4c)%ÊHhµé+:».¹¥Û:Úض+.š.ñjƒ¥Ÿ*ºwn*9_–…-7.lϳ¢(xšó<O¼"ÁÕ8qH.Æ´Ž....Biõä|.9Îâ.fWQtë .y÷ =‹Ý:© ².a¶R½‡¶ ‘.@..LÊ„tƒ.ºNKÅ3–óQ9Á¡íâÇ`½Óƒ¢<`ð+ŽÏØÞˆ.¦å^཰î\ƒß|•hzîczuÓÅñß#”`œ2îOê»;yÿçþ.Ïÿ.⯴vDl@Σgú.ç´ò.UG¯PK..´÷hÒ....ƒ...PK........5PtRÍÌ6ìB...B.......meta.xml<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>.<office:document-meta xmlns:office="urn:oasis:names:tc:opendocument:xmlns:office:1.0" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:meta="urn:oasis:names:tc:opendocument:xmlns:meta:1.0" xmlns:ooo="http://openoffice.org/2004/office" xmlns:grddl="http://www.w3.org/2003/g/data-view#" xmlns:textooo="http://openoffice.org/2013/office" office:version="1.2"><office:meta><meta:creation-date>2020-04-14T15:46:29.86</meta:creation-date><dc:title>Default 2mm below para</dc:title><meta:generator>OpenOffice/4.5.0$Win32 OpenOffice.org_project/450m1$Build-9900</meta:generator><meta:editing-duration>PT23M50S</meta:editing-duration><meta:editing-cycles>12</meta:editing-cycles><meta:initial-creator>John H</meta:initial-creator><dc:date>2021-03-20T10:01:43.24</dc:date><dc:creator>John </dc:creator><meta:printed-by>John H</meta:printed-by><meta:print-date>2020-04-14T15:53:13.46</meta:print-date><meta:document-statistic meta:table-count="0" meta:image-count="1" meta:object-count="0" meta:page-count="102" meta:paragraph-count="1055" meta:word-count="71197" meta:character-count="400684"/><meta:user-defined meta:name="Info 1"/><meta:user-defined meta:name="Info 2"/><meta:user-defined meta:name="Info 3"/><meta:user-defined meta:name="Info 4"/><meta:template xlink:type="simple" xlink:actuate="onRequest" xlink:title="Default 2mm below para" xlink:href="../../../../../AppData/Roaming/OpenOffice/4/user/template/Default%20-%202mm%20below%20para.ott" meta:date="2020-04-14T15:46:29.32"/></office:meta></office:document-meta>PK........5PtR................META-INF/manifest.xml.”ËnÂ0.E÷|Eäm•.R...PŸë.è..g.,ù.ÙcDþ¾.U mAm(ÙÄcÍÜs}.d±Ú+.íÀ:atN&ɘD ¹)„®rò¾~.gdµ.-.Ó¢.‡Y·ˆÂœvÇ2'ÞêÌ0'\¦™.—!ÏL.º0Ü+И}íÏ.¤cÕ3.’å(:ñJ!!.ó¶9u+(.‹±©!'¬®¥à.Ã4Ýé"9XHúä.a.—X§íÒK.×.·9¡„.òp^åÉèRTÞ.¼¹”2ÎAB(.¥Ü[ÛZ.¡.d}?¯óºUI¼Hx.ø7O.áB±.h.«óêë.W.Í„t.»eÒv.£´÷EÛdÎBÂ)ñÿÑm„f¶9O.¬1.cÎø.n.Лàè-8:.÷žô%ý|O.g“‡ûùó|zóÔ. †OÚ].Û/ÂØH¸F¶..¶ï..º½$tÝÔº.d.ñ.ýñ‡[~.PK...X?EQ.......PK..........5PtR^Æ2.'...'.....................mimetypePK..........5PtR..........................M...Configurations2/floater/PK..........5PtR............'.............ƒ...Configurations2/accelerator/current.xmlPK..........5PtR..........................Ú...Configurations2/images/Bitmaps/PK..........5PtR..............................Configurations2/progressbar/PK..........5PtR..........................Q...Configurations2/menubar/PK..........5PtR..........................‡...Configurations2/popupmenu/PK..........5PtR..........................¿...Configurations2/statusbar/PK..........5PtR..........................÷...Configurations2/toolbar/PK..........5PtR..........................-...Configurations2/toolpanel/PK..........5PtR™È¼2þI..þI................e...Thumbnails/thumbnail.pngPK..........5PtRç—ôî´K..ŽK................™L..content.xmlPK..........5PtR.ÌDwÜ...Ý.................†˜..layout-cachePK..........5PtR.F…ðøx..øx..-.............œš..Pictures/10000000000002E20000024B81A39D94.pngPK..........5PtRˆ.|n....6?................ß...settings.xmlPK..........5PtR.»ñ¸î...ì6................!...styles.xmlPK..........5PtR´÷hÒ....ƒ.................G&..manifest.rdfPK..........5PtRÍÌ6ìB...B.................†'..meta.xmlPK..........5PtR.X?EQ.....................î-..META-INF/manifest.xmlPK
4 Contact Repair OpenOffice Writer Document ONLINE and see if you can pay them to analyse the USB stick to see if they can recover the complete file as in the image above. They will be expecting you to send them the GHG in Order.odt file you have so they can recover data from it - don't waste your money or their time by doing so as there is no data in it.

Do you know anyone with extensive computing skills who can help you? Try asking a local university if an IT student will help. If you were willing to send me the USB stick (just copy everything from the stick to your hard disk so you still have the data) I will see what I can do - no promises of success!
Attachments
end_of_file marker for .odt files
end_of_file marker for .odt 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.
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Re: ASCII Filter Options--File Transformed into Gibberish

Post by John_Ha »

I have analysed the file more carefully now I know what the end_of_file marker looks like.

I now believe it is the start of the file which is missing, not the end of the file. I was misled because when I cut out just the final bit of the uploaded file it opened just like a proper ZIP file so I thought it must be the start. This happens because ZIP files put the directory of the stored files at the very end of the file - it's a throwback to the olden days of writing ZIP files to diskette.
I think the start of the uploaded file is missing
I think the start of the uploaded file is missing
wiki ZIP (file format) says you cannot recover a file just from a fragment and, judging from the truncated LO file I mentioned above, the start of the ZIP file is necessary to unzip stored files.
On-disk layout of a binary file format that is both the ZIP container and its relevance in the 64-bit format. It is a high level view meant to get a casual reader vaguely familiar with how the file is placed onto disk and why just a ZIP file fragment is insufficient to extract the available data.
Attachments
ZIP file layout
ZIP file layout
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.
Beee
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Joined: Tue May 11, 2021 3:00 am

Re: ASCII Filter Options--File Transformed into Gibberish

Post by Beee »

I tried looking up temporary files and found a lot of folders, but they seemed empty, unfortunately, or they wouldn't open. But I didn't expect to find anything since I did not have the backup option switched on. From the tutorial, it sounded like OpenOffice would not save temporary files otherwise. And I did switch on hidden files, and was able to see more, but nothing relating to my file. Maybe trying Recuva again will turn up more.
I will go through the options again as much as I can on my own; and try and think of anyone who I may be able to ask to read through this thread for me because there is so much I don't understand, naturally I am afraid I am missing something (The very fact that files have starts and ends blows my mind).

And if you still think there is any possibility of good coming from your analyzing of the USB stick after your last post, yes, I would send it to you. No expectations, I understand, but just to pursue every chance. And I will contact Repair OpenOffice Writer Document Online, too, to see what they say about it.

By the "start of the file" being missing, I'm imagining the beginning of my writing being missing...and the rest of the writing being intact somewhere. Is this wrong?

Alas, you have spent so much time on this, and it all flies over my head! Thank you very much.
OpenOffice version: 4.1.5
OS: Windows 10, 64-bit
John_Ha
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Re: ASCII Filter Options--File Transformed into Gibberish

Post by John_Ha »

Beee wrote:From the tutorial, it sounded like OpenOffice would not save temporary files otherwise. And I did switch on hidden files, and was able to see more, but nothing relating to my file.
Not quite correct. AOO always writes temporary files but writes them as hidden files. You need to switch on hidden files to be able to see them.
Beee wrote:And if you still think there is any possibility of good coming from your analyzing of the USB stick after your last post, yes, I would send it to you. No expectations, I understand, but just to pursue every chance.

I have sent you my email ID to you.
Beee wrote:And I will contact Repair OpenOffice Writer Document Online, too, to see what they say about it.
If you prefer, I will contact them for you as I will probably be better able to discuss options with them. If you want me to, click the PM or Envelope icon under my name on the right and send me your email address so I can include you on the conversation.

If you prefer to do it yourself, I suggest telling them something like this:
1. I saved my AOO file GHG in Order.odt to my USB memory stick. It contains about 300,000 words of writing.

2. When I inserted the stick into my Windows PC I received a message saying there were corrupted files in my flash drive that needed repairing, and did I want to repair them? I chose "repair".

3. When I tried to open GHG in Order.odt, which I had not used for a month, instead of opening the document, AOO gave me the ASCII Filter Options message. I hit "ok" and found my document transformed into gibberish and hashtags and there was none of my writing in it.

4. I asked for advice on the forum (see viewtopic.php?f=6&t=105219) and was told that the file GHG in Order.odt seems to end properly as it has a proper ZIP Central Directory at the end of the file. But it seems that the start of the file is missing and, unless the start of the file can be found, the file cannot be repaired.

If I send you the USB stick is there any chance that you could find the rest of the file on the memory stick and repair the file for me?
Beee wrote:By the "start of the file" being missing, I'm imagining the beginning of my writing being missing...and the rest of the writing being intact somewhere. Is this wrong?
Not quite correct. The text you write is saved in a file called content.xml and content.xml is compressed into a ZIP file to make it smaller. The compression makes it look like gibberish. The information needed to uncompress it is stored in the beginning of the file. You have lost the beginning of GHG in Order.odt and unfortunately, that has lost the start of content.xml so you have lost the information needed to uncompress the bit you have left. Hence, content.xml cannot be un-compressed.

If we can get content.xml we can give you the words you typed but without formatting - all fonts, bold, italic, headings, paragraph indents etc are lost but we have the words.
Attachments
ScanImage002.png
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.
John_Ha
Volunteer
Posts: 9583
Joined: Fri Sep 18, 2009 5:51 pm
Location: UK

Re: ASCII Filter Options--File Transformed into Gibberish

Post by John_Ha »

Another thought has occurred to me.

You say you managed to recover an older version of the file. Could you please upload it or send it to me. As only a small proportion of content.xml has been lost there is a tiny, tiny possibility that, if the text at the front of the old file has not been edited compared with the text at the front of the now broken file, it might be possible to stitch the front of the old file onto the back of the broken file and get something out.
 Edit: This does not work.

I created two files which were identical, except the second had an additional word at the end. I had hoped that the first part of content.xml in both files would have ZIPped exactly the same, with just a bit added on the end for the extra word. Had this been the case, I could easily add the front of the first content.xml file to the back of the second content.xml to recover content.xml.

Unfortunately (and somewhat surprisingly to me) the two content.xml files were completely different right from the start. 
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.
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