by RoryOF » Tue Oct 07, 2014 10:43 pm
It may help prevent this happening in future if you remember that the OpenOffice file structure is a compressed archive; this takes longer to construct than an ordinary file. To speed up their response, modern computers may use software delayed write buffers, and hard disks certainly use various forms of internal buffering, where files may be accumulated in their internal buffers, sorted as to their space on the disk platters, and then written in one pass of the disk head across the platter. These processes can take some time - only seconds, but if the computer is shut down too quickly such writes may not be completed, leaving the archive OpenOffice file in a partially written state; this can manifest itself as a "damaged archive", or in other circumstances as preallocated space in the archive which has not yet been overwritten by the correct data (the "####" sequence you have seen). To avoid these problems I recommend that one should not be too hasty in powering off the computer. Close OpenOffice, then collect your papers and pens, then power down.
By observing this simple procedure I can show several files with thousands of saves, the work of years.
Apache OpenOffice 4.1.9 on Xubuntu 20.04.2 (mostly 64 bit version) and very infrequently on Win2K/XP