[Solved] Disappearing pictures (odt, Norton?)

[robertfrick]

Last week half of my pictures disappeared from an essay I was writing. I decided it had to be my mistake, somehow.

Today I got a message that Norton had scanned something or another. (It was too quick to read.) Then I noticed that a lot of my pictures had again gone missing. Including new pictures. Coincidence? I am guessing not.

The pictures are also missing in all of my backups. (I was constantly changing the file name in saving.) That isn't an Open Office problem, and that isn't me. The same thing happened last week. The file size for every one is now smaller than it was. I was saving in odt format.

No one seems to have noted this. If you want to help me, thanks, but I think I just have to re-add the pictures again.

[John_Ha]

See 16. Lost images ... and a word of caution about using AutoRecovery. LibreOffice 6.1 and later is now probably better than AOO in [Tutorial] Some useful hints on using images for a discussion.

[cwolan]

Today I got a message that Norton had scanned something or another. (It was too quick to read.) [...]

Probably irrelevant, but have you checked the information in the Norton's Security History?

[robertfrick]

Thanks. Suppose this was an anti-virus scanning problem. (I don't see how else unused files would be systematically changed.) It seems unlikely that any anti-virus program would ever remove the pictures from .doc or .docx files -- there would be too many unhappy customers. But if it (1) did not recognize the pictures in an .odt file, (2) processed them as text or something else, and (3) removed what it thought were potentially damaging strings, there might be only one upset customer. And I was never going to actually buy the Norton that came with my computer.

[RoryOF]

OpenOffice can lose picture files; this was fixed at great expense by LibreOffice.

I still use OpenOffice and have a workaround fix that works on my system. I use Xubuntu, and my working files are all kept on an NAS (network address storage) device. I have disabled "Always create a backup copy" because my NAS device doesn't like that and "Save AutoRecovery every x minutes" and I have had no picture loss in years, creating and editing either Writer or Impress documents.

However - and I stress this - this fix might be specific to a linux system writing to a remote device. I can make no guarantee for Windows and local storage, and don't make any guarantee that it will work for anyone else, whatever operating system they use. John_Ha says my result may be a freak, and he may be correct.

Because autobackup is disabled, it is my responsibility to Save a file in progress regularly, which, as a long time computer user I do instinctively, also using timed/dated backups.

The quick solution may be to transfer to LibreOffice.

[John_Ha]

Suppose this was an anti-virus scanning problem.

It wasn't. There is absolutely no way it could be an AV program.

I don't see how else unused files would be systematically changed.

Unused files weren't changed. They were changed at the time of opening, while they were being edited, or at the time of saving.

Showing that a problem has been solved helps others searching so, if your problem is now solved, please view your first post in this thread and click the Edit button (top right in the post) and add [Solved] in front of the subject.

[robertfrick]

A general solution: If a batch of pictures seems to be suddenly corrupted, deactivate any anti-virus program and see if that fixes the problem.

Hi John. Thanks, you made me think. And recheck. Evidence for that "solution"?

Yesterday I removed Norton. Today I could find no missing pictures in the same files I was looking in yesterday and the files from last week. Exception: Anything I saved was not retained in the new version. That's hard evidence of corruption to back up my memory.

The corruption was obvious at first -- the file I was working on was showing error messages where pictures should have been (and text in the picture frame from my text). It was confirmed when I opened my backups and they too at first showed the error message. Then, the next time I opened that file, the error messages were gone and nothing was displayed, which of course made it difficult to look for the missing pictures.

So, something corrupted my files. And only some of those pictures were corrupted. I do not know how you would explain that EXCEPT as an effect of an anti-virus program. Plus this new evidence of making the pictures reappear.

Does that count as a solution? This happened to me on the 7th and the 13th, so I probably should wait a week to see if it happens again.

[RoryOF]

I doubt that something was corrupting your files. Usually lost pictures shows up as a placeholder - a blank frame with three little dots top left, and (so long since I've seen one) a file not found message.

Depending on the complexity of your file, and the amount of work to be done in the background by OpenOffice scaling/cropping the pictures. it may take OpenOffice some time - think two/three minutes or longer, to stabilise. Each picture adjustment (automatic, to your layout specification) may cause a ripple down through the layout of the rest of the file, and so on in turn for each picture. Don't rush it! let it happen.

[robertfrick]

My files load like lightning (literally, I guess), pictures and all. No waiting needed. So today I see all the pictures. The art at the top appeared upon loading and the art at the end was there faster than I could get there to look.

And, I note, the effect also occurred in a program I had open, though I was not attending to it regularly.

And there was a placeholder, something like "This picture cannot be displayed." Which did not save and I think disappeared on second viewing.

Did you want to argue that my file was not corrupted in memory, but was corrupted in loading and saving (the file, when it was showing the error message or no, saved without pictures at all)? I think that's possible, but you have a problem with the timing -- from 3 pm Eastern 10/13 and for the rest of the day, there was a problem loading and saving. And last week on 10/7. But no other times that I know of.

My pictures are all small and pre-cropped and pre-sized and have no layout specification. Or one large picture might have snuck in. Maybe there are other situations where people have to wait for OpenOffice, but I am not in that situation. And I did not notice any pictures reappearing, and I must have spent time just staring agog and hoping things would change. The effect is ten or twenty pictures now suddenly displaying that error message.

Is it really impossible for Norton to take any action? It just checks things and makes sure there are no large threats?

[John_Ha]

So, something corrupted my files. And only some of those pictures were corrupted.

That is exactly what the defect in AOO does.

I do not know how you would explain that EXCEPT as an effect of an anti-virus program.

It is a well known defect in AOO which, if you read the tutorial item I pointed you to, has been almost completely fixed in LO.

If you don't believe it why not search the forum with lost images where you find you get 195 threads.

Of course, if they were linked images and not embedded images then a whole new range of scenarios emerges if you moved the file; or moved or deleted the images; or if they disappeared from where they were linked.

Read the tutorial.

Edit: It is very difficult to follow what you say happened because everything is so general and imprecise. Please give a precise history of one file which had pictures, then lost them, then found them again. I have done extensive testing with numerous posters trying to track down the reasons for image loss in Writer and Impress and I have submitted bug reports (eg Issue 126970 - Lost images while editing a Writer .odt file - two scenarios with reproducible scenarios where images are always lost but, linked images aside, I can posit no process where a file which has lost images suddenly finds them again. If you to understood the structure of a .odt file you would understand why that is not possible. You say you use different file names - are you certain you really are talking about the same file? Read what LO discovered about the code used in AOO: The code we've inherited [from OOo, still used by AOO] that deals with image caching, swapping in, out, lifecycle management of images via strings, swapping in and out to documents etc. is broken beyond belief. This is a tracker bug to start aggregating these horrors.

[robertfrick]

thanks again, I did not expect anyone to care about my problem and it is comforting. People are saying that this is not an anti-virus problem, which implies it will happen again. I will try to take better notes next time.

For now:

I use Open Office 4.1.10. All of my pictures are inserted into my file via insert; I edit them before inserting.

I regularly change files names. PD4K.odt was last saved at 12:22 pm Oct. 13. PD4L.odt was last saved at 12:51.

PD4L was open on my computer and I think I was sporadically working on it while I was "at work" on another computer.

At some point I receive a message from my Norton anti-virus, I think that a scan had performed.

After that, at around 1:15 I noticed that some but not all of my pictures in PD4L.odt were displaying as that the picture could not be displayed. That's an error message, I think in red. Text from my document was in the box.

I immediately saved this as PD4x. PD4x has a file size of 3.6 MgB. PD4L was and is 5.9 MgB. I immediately looked at PD4K, and it was also showing that pictures could not be displayed, and this was true for all of the previous versions that I looked at.

Last night (Oct. 13th still), I uninstalled Norton.

Today, I happened to look at those files, such as PD4L, and all of the pictures are showing. Of course, PD4x still has missing pictures. Saving to another file suggests that the same pictures that could not display were not saved. Today, when I saved PD4L to disk as PD4y,it had the same file size as PD4l.

Anything I should look for next time?

[Hagar Delest]

I'm rather confused. Some pictures reappeared, correct? Even from old documents or only from documents saved after you removed Norton?
If you rely extensively on pictures, better switch to LibreOffice I think.

[RoryOF]

If the pictures are coming and going in a particular file, that may be caused by some other application on your computer hogging resources. Purely as a test, open that file, walk away and have a coffee; when you return, are the pictures showing? If so, you should run a diagnostic program that monitors what is eating resources on your computer.

There may be two problems, which can cause difficulties. One is the intermittency in a given file, the other is the severe possibility (John_Ha has investigated this in depth, and will say "certainty") of absolute picture loss if using OpenOffice, On Windows, to avoid that, you should switch to LibreOffice which has investigated and cured the problem.

The intermittency problem may still occur (a possibility - who can say for certain?) using LibreOffice. To analyse that requires monitoring of your computer using a diagnostic which shows what resources are being used by what applications or drivers. If you think Norton is responsible, as a test, you should disconnect from the Internet for safety, disable Norton, and conduct an editing session to see if the problem occurs. If you are satisfied that it does not occur with Norton disabled, then you should investigate Norton's settings with respect to OpenOffice and its files, but recollect that there is still the possibility/certainty of picture loss in OpenOffice in the long term because of an inbuilt code flaw.

You may find the TimeStamp extension of use: the latest version (v1.2?) of this can be downloaded from
http://flowcont.hu/LO_oxt_store/

[John_Ha]

If I understand you correctly, this is what happened. You were editing the predecessor, PD4J and saved it as PD4K at 12.22. The file being edited then became PD4K. You then saved it as PD4L at 12.51 (5.9MB) so the file became PD4L.

While editing PD4L you got the AV message.

Later, you noticed images were missing so you saved as PD4x which is only 3.6MB.

You opened PD4L and images were there as expected.

Everything up to here is as expected - AOO lost your images sometime after 12.51.

There are then two anomalies.

First, you say you opened PD4K and the images were missing. We can presume they were there when you saved the file although AOO could have lost them on saving the file. If they were there, it is possible AOO lost them on opening the file but, if you did not then save the open file, and just closed the file, the images would still be in the file, and the file would still be ~ 5.9MB.

Second, you say you opened other predecessor files from much earlier - presumably J, I, H, G etc - and the images were lost from all of them them. There is no accounting for that other than loss on opening, and the probability of all doing it is vanishingly small; or linked images, and contact with the linked images was lost. However, if you did not the save the open files, and just closed the files, the images would still be in, or linked to, the files. What file sizes are these files?

1. Please open PD4x and post an image of the missing image error messages. Check all missing images have the same error messages - if different post all.

2. Please open a predecessor file (J, I, H, G etc) and post an image of the missing image error messages. Check all missing images have the same error messages.

3. Are you certain you images are embedded and not linked? Open PD4L and go Edit > Links. Are any images linked? If they are it could explain everything.

4. While PD4L is open, File > Properties. How many times has it been edited? For how long has it been open for editing?

5. Have you ever moved any of these files to a different folder? Or moved or deleted any image files on your PC?

6. Is Tools > Options > View > Display > Graphics and objects ticked? If not, no graphics are displayed. Have you un-ticked it in error?

7. Do you have Tools > Options > Load/Save > General > Save Autorecovery information ..., enabled. Read the tutorial for why I ask.

8. Learn about File > Versions - it will save a lot of hassle.

9. Do you have a utility which deletes the contents of .../AppData/Local/Temp? If you delete the write protected AOO temporary files folder or its contents, swapped image files in that open document are deleted.

10. Please upload PD4K.odt, PD4L.odt and PD4x.odt so they can be analysed. Use a file share site such as mediafire, Dropbox or Google Drive and post the links. If the files have confidential material in them, you can obscure the contents without affecting the structure too much (lines will spill differently because different characters have different widths) by changing every lower case alphabetic character to an " x ". Select all the text (Ctrl+A) and:

Edit > Find and Replace
Find box [a-z]
Replace box x
Options: Match case: YES, Regular expressions: YES
click Replace all

Repeat the above using [A-Z] and X to scramble the upper case letters, and [0-9] and 0 to scramble numeric data.

[robertfrick]

I was asked about a file. Now there seems to be a question of timing.

I started putting pictures into a document, for the first time, on Oct. 2. If I had any problem at the start, and I do have a vague memory of that, I would have blamed myself and not been bothered by the apparent disappearance of a few pictures.

The first noticeable problem occurred Oct. 7. Again, this problem was getting the "cannot be displayed" message on multiple pictures that had just been there (as far as I knew). I was shocked to find this same problem in my "backups". I read about how to solve the problem. I transferred the file to a memory stick and looked at that on another computer's OpenOffice. I despaired, complained to my friends, etc.

Then I gave up and moved on, putting the missing pictures back into my document.

The second noticeable episode was Oct. 13th, with the same problem. This time I blamed my anti-virus prorgram. I called Norton for help and they demured. Again, it seemed sudden to me, the backups had the same problem, I looked for more possible solutions, and I again gave up and re-added the pictures.

The only difference was when I happened to look at the old files the next day, the pictures were all intact and displaying fine. And again I note that I uninstalled my anti-virus program (Norton) the night before.

And, again, everyone seems to be telling me that this is an Open Office problem. If so, I should re-experience this problem in a week or so. If I do, and as you might guess I do not expect that, I will wait for the pictures to magically reappear. Is there anything you want me to look for?

[John_Ha]

Is there anything you want me to look for?

Seeing how much time I put into my last post to help you, you might have the grace to answer the questions I asked you.

[Hagar Delest]

In fact, this has been a long time issue with AOO. There may be something like a AOO process trying to retrieve the pics from the temporary file used when a document is opened and then prevented by the antivirus in some way.
Very difficult to say since nobody at AOO ever found any smoking gun. And LibreOffice rewrote the code, not sure if there is any explanation somewhere of what is wrong with the code.
If nothing happens from now, it may be indeed an antivirus issue. As advised by RoryOF, deactivating the automatic backup and the automatic recovery information (every x minutes) may also fix the issue.

[RoryOF]

As advised by RoryOF, deactivating the automatic backup and the automatic recovery information (every x minutes) may also fix the issue.

That process works for me using Xubuntu, but I cannot guarantee and do not even suggest that it will work on modern Windows - if you wish, try it and see. John_Ha and I have looked into this problem, he more so than me, as he is using Windows.

My suspicion (and I have not investigated) is that it might be do do with an interrupt handling problem, where there is an error with masking interrupts, and when Save for automatic recovery process kicks in and a key is pressed on the keyboard, sometimes OpenOffice becomes confused and the pointers to the internal picture store are lost. Were I investigating, that is where I would start, but I stress that my knowledge of interrupts is 35-40 years out of date (Z80 based), and I have _NO_ knowledge of current microcomputer code or its interrupt handling.

Set against that the LibreOffice rewrite of the handling of pictures; they did a complete rewrite and redesign of the picture handling code, not a mere quick fix; their code seems robust, as there have since been only a trivial number of reports of picture loss in LibreOffice, which both John and I think may be due to user error.

[robertfrick]

Let me ask this: What program created the error message I saw?

I mean, it was something like "Picture cannot be displayed". Or "Graphic cannot be displayed." It was in the box where the picture should have been. I remember seeing red (literally). The background was words from my text?

Does Open Office have this error message?

[robertfrick]

Hi. John. I was working on an answer to you. It seems to be gone now, so I will repeat.I am still working on.)
[quote="John_Ha"]If I understand you correctly, this is what happened. You were editing the predecessor, PD4J and saved it as PD4K at 12.22. The file being edited then became PD4K. You then saved it as PD4L at 12.51 (5.9MB) so the file became PD4L.

ScanImage001.gif

While editing PD4L you got the AV message.

Later, you noticed images were missing so you saved as PD4x which is only 3.6MB.

You opened PD4L and images were there as expected.

****************NO. PD4L was not normal until the next day, when all files viewed normally with all pictures

Everything up to here is as expected - AOO lost your images sometime after 12.51.

There are then two anomalies.

First, you say you opened PD4K and the images were missing. We can presume they were there when you saved the file although AOO could have lost them on saving the file. If they were there, it is possible AOO lost them on opening the file but, if you did not then save the open file, and just closed the file, the images would still be in the file, and the file would still be ~ 5.9MB.

**************** Right, the images were still in PD4K and PD4L, some of them were not displaying, and those were lost upon saving.

Second, you say you opened other predecessor files from much earlier - presumably J, I, H, G etc - and the images were lost from all of them them. There is no accounting for that other than loss on opening, and the probability of all doing it is vanishingly small; or linked images, and contact with the linked images was lost. However, if you did not the save the open files, and just closed the files, the images would still be in, or linked to, the files. What file sizes are these files?

*********** There is a steadily increasing file size as I add pictures. And they all view normally now, so the pictures must have been still in those files. The question is why they were not displayed.



1. Please open PD4x and post an image of the missing image error messages. Check all missing images have the same error messages - if different post all.

************************* I don't see that error message any more and have no idea how to create it. Can you? Wednesday I had chicken for dinner and uninstalled Norton. Perhaps one of those is relevant.

2. Please open a predecessor file (J, I, H, G etc) and post an image of the missing image error messages. Check all missing images have the same error messages.

Always the same error message. The background text probably changed, but I did not check that.

3. Are you certain you images are embedded and not linked? Open PD4L and go Edit > Links. Are any images linked? If they are it could explain everything.

Not linked, that option is in grey.

4. While PD4L is open, File > Properties. How many times has it been edited? For how long has it been open for editing?

110 249:42:57

5. Have you ever moved any of these files to a different folder? Or moved or deleted any image files on your PC?

not that day, that I remember. Nothing between 12 and 1:15.

6. Is Tools > Options > View > Display > Graphics and objects ticked? If not, no graphics are displayed. Have you un-ticked it in error?

Only some of the pictures were replaced with the error message.

7. Do you have Tools > Options > Load/Save > General > Save Autorecovery information ..., enabled. Read the tutorial for why I ask.

It is checked. I probably have all default settings except for autocorrect.


9. Do you have a utility which deletes the contents of .../AppData/Local/Temp? If you delete the write protected AOO temporary files folder or its contents, swapped image files in that open document are deleted.

I did not buy any apps for that purpose.

10. Please upload PD4K.odt, PD4L.odt and PD4x.odt so they can be analysed. Use a file share site such as mediafire, Dropbox or Google Drive and post the links. If the files have confidential material in them, you can obscure the contents without affecting the structure too much (lines will spill differently because different characters have different widths) by changing every lower case alphabetic character to an " x ". Select all the text (Ctrl+A) and:

That will take me a while. I will go back to working on it.

[robertfrick]

10. Please upload PD4K.odt, PD4L.odt and PD4x.odt so they can be analysed.

I hope this is right

rfrick.info/PD4k.odt
rfrick.info/PD4l.odt
rfrick.info/PD4x.odt
rfrick.info/PD5.odt

Done! I predict that PD4L and PD4K will be normal with no problems. That's what I see today. If you can make the error message appear, that would be great. Or maybe an analysis of the pictures will show something.

PD5 might be a little friendlier than PD4x. I went through PD4L (or K), found at least some of the error messages and marked them with an XX before saving to disk. That xx is retained in PD5. So it's a lot easier to see where the missing pictures used to be.

[RoryOF]

Both PD4x and PD5 have lost pictures 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 24, 25,26, 27, 28. No error messages. PD4k, PD4L are OK, with all 28 pictures, no error rmessages whatsoever. All pictures that displayed displayed immediately on my computer.

[robertfrick]

Both PD4x and PD5 have lost pictures 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 24, 25,26, 27, 28. No error messages. PD4k, PD4L are OK, with all 28 pictures, no error rmessages whatsoever. All pictures that displayed displayed immediately on my computer.

As expected. I assume you didn't even try to save PDL4 in a way that would create PD4x (because that seems impossible).

[RoryOF]

Will try it now.

Saved as PD4lx.odt. All 28 pictures present when PD4lx.odt was reopened.

[robertfrick]

If you corrupt an image file, can you get a message that it cannot be displayed" What happens when you try to save that?

[robertfrick]

Just to confirmed that I have not had any problems since removing my anti-virus program. (This apparently happened to me 3 times in two weeks and then not at all for now 18 days.)

Today I deliberately corrupted a picture and got a very different error message from Open Office. Th atfits with the fact that there was nothing wrong with my file when the pictures weren't displaying, just some other program was preventing select pictures from being displayed or saved. Thanks again to everyone.

[RoryOF]

You may think you have a solution: DON'T TRUST IT! Install the Timestamp backup extension and use it very regularly.

On my operating system (Xubuntu 20.04.3) I have a method that has not caused me any picture loss since I adopted it some years ago, but that method may be (read: is?) operating system specific and I don't suggest it will work on Windows.

In spite of not having had picture loss, I still use the timestamp backup I pointed to near the start of this thread, and am prepared, if I have picture loss, to redo any work since any last undamaged backup.

[Hagar Delest]

If LibreOffice revamped completely the code for pictures, I bet there is a problem with the way AOO handles them. It may be prone to interference with security applications.

[RoryOF]

My suspicion is that it is an unmasked interrupt, and my procedure of disabling the Autorecovery Save prevents the interference that causes the picture losses. But any such workaround is quite likely to be operating system specific - it is working for me on Xubuntu. I can make no claims for it to work on Windows 10, which I don't have or use.

[robertfrick]

You may think you have a solution: DON'T TRUST IT! Install the Timestamp backup extension and use it very regularly.

On my operating system (Xubuntu 20.04.3) I have a method that has not caused me any picture loss since I adopted it some years ago, but that method may be (read: is?) operating system specific and I don't suggest it will work on Windows.

In spite of not having had picture loss, I still use the timestamp backup I pointed to near the start of this thread, and am prepared, if I have picture loss, to redo any work since any last undamaged backup.

Except that wouldn't have helped here. There was no corruption on the file I was working on. I had frequent backups, and I couldn't go back to my last undamaged backup because there was no damage, and they were all fine too, they just also didn't display the same "offending" pictures. A day later -- after uninstalling my anti-virus -- they all worked fine.