[Solved] Frozen word document OpenOffice 4.1.1

[acglass]

I am 95% finished with a new word document and it's suddenly frozen. By frozen, I mean all I get is a white arrow for the cursor. Anywhere I click in the document does not change the arrows behavior. Any where I click in the menus does not change the arrow. If I right click on the logo in the task bar and choose close, it does nothing... It is not responding at all. What to do?

Thanks!

[RoryOF]

How recently have you saved it? If not recently, leave it alone for about 30 minutes just in case it comes back. If it does, Save the file immediately, then close down OpenOffice and reboot your computer. If it doesn't come back, start TaskManager (Ctrl Shift Esc) and Kill any soffice processes shown as running on TaskManager's Processes tab. That should cure the problem. It would be a good idea to reboot the computer after this.

[RoryOF]

Note that whatever you do, there is a risk your document may be lost.

[acglass]

Does the document save itself while working on it?

[RoryOF]

That all depends on whether you set to make backups in /Tools /Options /Load-Save and set an interval for saving Autorecovery information. Even at that there is a risk it may be lost. But to be sure, wait for other advice.

[acglass]

So the cursor just came back in the text. It is flashing as though it's ready to do something. I still have no control over it though; it's still frozen. What is the keyboard shortcut to save the document?

[RoryOF]

Ctrl S

[Bill]

Before shutting down AOO, copy the files in the AOO backup folder and paste the them on your desktop. If the files in the backup folder become lost when restarting AOO, then you may be able to recover something from the files on the desktop.

To get to the backup folder, copy and paste %appdata%\OpenOffice\4\user\backup in the File Explorer address bar and press Enter.

[acglass]

Bill,

Winner, winner Chicken dinner! You my friend are a genius and life saver. Your solution saved the day and the remainder of my hair!

[acglass]

Now that the document is safely recreated and saved, I shut down open office and restarted the computer. When I reopened AOO it immediately asked me if I wanted to recover the frozen document. I said yes and it was successfully recovered. Sure glad I didn't have to rely on that, but glad to know it worked.