Apache OpenOffice Community Forum

And this is the reason AutoSaving is superior to AutoRecovery. If my spreadsheet had been AutoSaved I could just go to the file, change the extension from BAK to ODS and open it from the place it was last saved. As it is, I saved it since the last AutoRecover scan and OpenOffice insists on recovering the file. If I want to not recover, it opens a dummy text file and tries to recover that. I cannot even open any file directly. So now I have to fix AOO before I can continue working on any file.

OK. I got lucky and was able to get into my file after a few attempts, but not because of AutoRecovery.

This is the message I get when the dummy file opens:
Can not activate the factory for com.surrey.SimpleTextRecognizer because java.lang.ClassCastException: sun.net.www.protocol.file.FileURLConnection cannot be cast to java.net.JarURLConnection

I disable 'auto-recovery'. If you use automatic backups, you may want to check the backups sub-folder occasionally because, IIRC, backups stay there forever.

Once the backup files aren't needed they get deleted. I forgot about the backups in the AOO sub-folder of the profile. Currently, AOO only backs up the file when it first opens. I had saved my file several times since then.

I have never seen a way to disable AutoRecovery. If I had, I would have done so.

I resurrect this topic because it's a very common mistake (or expectation).

The AutoRecovery can be disabled in Tools > Options > Load/Save > General and uncheck Save AutoRecovery information every xx minutes.
Note that even when deactivated, in case of crash, AOO will try to save the recovery data nevertheless.

If you want a real AutoSave feature, use this extension: Time stamped backup.

Snce I first posted this I have upgraded AOO several times and at some point in the past five years or so, have started using both AutoSave and AutoRecovery without any problems. I am now on 4.1.11.