Help with Corrupted OpenOffice ODT File

[Triangle45]

Dear friends,

I hope that you are healthy and safe from this Coronavius pandemic.

I'm writing to you because I'm experiencing a big problem. One of my important Open Office documents got corrupted last Friday.

How can I repair a corrupted Open Office ODT file? I typed a document for one of my students, I save it correctly but my file got corrupted.

Thanks for the help that you can provide me.

[robleyd]

What is happening that make you think the file is corrupted? Do you get a Text Import dialog when you attempt to open it? If so, as soon as possible try the methods in this tutorial for detailed instructions on how to

a) use Previous Versions (W7 and later) to recover previous versions of the file.

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) un-delete the temporary files AOO wrote while you were editing the file, and then deleted. This may recover your file as it was when you last opened or you last saved it.

Waste no time with the existing file - I doubt it will have any usable content.

Or, do you get an error like Format error discovered in the file in sub-document content.xml/ In this case the file may be recoverable - see [Tutorial] Format error discovered in sub-document for how to repair. If you are not confident with the steps outlined, upload your file and someone with more experience may be able to try and repair it for you.

[Triangle45]

Hi Robleyd,
Thanks for your reply. Can I send you he file to take a look?
My Dell Technical support customer service took a look and they told me that was corrupted.

Edwin

[robleyd]

Attach the file as suggested in my link above.

[Triangle45]

Hi,

Thank you so much for your reply. I'm not able to attach the file in this forum. Something is wrong. Can you please provide me with your email address and I will send it to you?

Thanks.
Edwin

[erbsenzahl]

A conversion into pdf format at https://zamzar.com had the attached result (only # in file). I doubt that your file can be healed...

Jesus es sepultado en Israel.pdf

(12.04 KiB) Downloaded 225 times

[Triangle45]

Hi Erbsenzahl,

I hope you are well in Germany.

Thanks for your help but are you sure that can't be fixed? I saved the file correctly and the file looks correctly. What can cause the file to be damaged?
Dell told me that was not a virus in my laptop. The same thing was said to me by my antivirus company McAfee. The file was not damaged by a virus.

[erbsenzahl]

I tried to open your "Jesus file" on LibreOffice 7.1.4.2 and after failure message I tried to extract as a compressed file, failure message again. That means that your file has got some problems in structure/content... Luckily zamzar could convert. The result (only # in your file) implies for me that further restoring your file won't get acceptable results. It's corrupted...

[Triangle45]

Thank you so much for your help. I sent the file to a company that can try to fix it. They are supposed to write me soon.

Please let me know if you find something else. What can be the cause of the corruption?

Thanks for your help.
Edwin

[robleyd]

There is no data in the file; there is nothing that can be recovered from it. Do as I suggested in the first part of my first reply above; waste no time.

As to the cause, possibly the computer was shut down with the file open, or laptop lid closed causing hibernation with the file open, power loss causing an unexpected shutdown, reboot due to a Windows update: just some of the potential causes.

[Triangle45]

Hi,
I got it. Do you think this could be caused by a virus or spyware?

Please let me know.
Thanks.
Edwin

[RoryOF]

Your file is damaged beyond repair, most probably because you powered off your computer too hastily or closed the laptop lid before the final housekeeping had been written to disk. It is a damaged archive, missing the essential information about the internal compression.

Use the methods earlier suggested as soon as possible - there is no guarantee you will recover anything, but the longer before trying those methods the less possibility of a recovery.

[Hagar Delest]

Do you think this could be caused by a virus or spyware?

I doubt so.
Many post in this forum about such corruption. There is even a bug report for the hashes problem.
LibreOffice does not seem to be subject to this issue.

[robleyd]

No; it isn't either virus or spyware.

[Triangle45]

Hi Hagar,
Thanks for your reply. I really appreciate it. Is this a common problem in Open Office?

Is any other way that this problem can be fixed?

Thanks a lot.
Edwin

[RoryOF]

The only possibility is to try the methods previously indicated. The more you use the computer before trying these methods, the less chance here is of a recovery (which cannot be guaranteed).

[Triangle45]

Thanks Rory. I appreciate it. If you find something else I can do, please let me know.

Edwin

[RoryOF]

There is nothing else to do.

[Triangle45]

Thanks RoryOF.
Edwin

[Hagar Delest]

Is this a common problem in Open Office?

Is any other way that this problem can be fixed?

Sadly, it is an old problem. See: [Tutorial] The Dreaded Pound Signs: file reduced to ####. There is a link to a post where (in the past) I used to record all the occurrences of that issue. I filed a bug report and mailed several times the dev mailing list about that. After several years, some work has been done IIRC. I think a smoking gun has been found but not sure anymore.

LibreOffice secured its saving process long ago, at the beginning of the fork IIRC. I don't remember having seen that issue with LO. That's one of the reasons why I switched to LO. Even if I never experienced this bug myself, not working on it for so many years (and letting users lose data meanwhile) is not acceptable in the end.

[RoryOF]

It is a matter of computer discipline - old computer hands are always careful to close the computer systematically. The only time I lost a file was by power failure; I now drive my computer from a "salvaged" Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS), which has allowed me to Save a file when there were storm interruptions to the electricity.

[Triangle45]

Honestly, I don't know what happened that day. Where I can get a UPS so this will not happen again in the future?
Please let me know.
Thanks a lot.

Edwin

[RoryOF]

A UPS will only protect against file loss through power failure. In your case, as I said in a previous answer, the corruption is most probably due to overhasty power off of the computer, or closing a laptop lid too quickly after closing the file, neither of which allow time for the housekeeping information to be written to disk. You need only pause for a few (perhaps ten) seconds to allow this process to take place.

Rewrite your file - I estimate that it might have been about 1,500 to 2,000 words - a little over an hour's work if it is fresh in your memory.

[Triangle45]

Thankss RoryOF but where I can get it anyway?

Sometimes we get power outages here in USA.

Edwin

[robleyd]

And you are asking someone living in another country where to buy a UPS in the country where you live? I would think that a web search would give you more useful results than we can from an ocean away..

[RoryOF]

A shop selling security lighting and alarms will have UPS devices. Even the smallest should suffice if as soon as there is a power outage one Saves the file and shuts down computer.

[Triangle45]

Okay. Thanks for letting me know. Edwin

[John_Ha]

See Why is my Writer file full of #####? for an explanation of files full of null characters which Writer displays as ######.

They are caused when the PC crashes before a file has been completely written.

[Hagar Delest]

They are caused when the PC crashes before a file has been completely written.

Well, a save operation should be secure enough to take into account this possibility, which is NOT uncommon.
What is most dangerous in this bug is that you lose both the last edition of the file AND the initial version!
I fully understand that you can lose the last revision (that was being written): there can be an issue, be it a power shut down, a HD mishap, another process locking the system...
However, what is just unacceptable is to have the initial version being wiped out as well! It means that the save operation doesn't wait to be sure that the new version is correctly saved before handling the initial version.

[RoryOF]

What is most dangerous in this bug is that you lose both the last edition of the file AND the initial version!

That original version ought be recoverable by Recuva or PhotoRec or some equivalent programs on other operating systems. But, as with all recovery operations of deleted files, the sooner this is undertaken the better the chance of a good result.

If this is occurring, it is a logic design problem with Saving an exiting file. I can recollect from back in my early programming days how difficult it was to get the sequencing correct for Saving a version of an existing file.