[Hint] How did I fix my ODT file

[John_Ha]

Sorry, your document is empty—there's no content there to recover.

Your document is not corrupted - it is perfect. It is as though you created a new document and then saved the document without typing anything into it.

Or you Selected everything in the document, deleted everything, and then saved the empty document - this can be done with four keystrokes by Ctrl+A > Ctrl+X > Ctrl+Q > Enter.

If you have typed something into it and/or saved it before, look for the file you presumably saved under a different name.

[jaqueline]

Hi everyone !

thanks for the tips but they don't look to work for me. I begin to write a novel, and I don't know why I can not open my ODT file anymore.

I try the zip method, but there is nothing in the zip. Do you have any other method for me ?
The file is here :

http://www.mediafire.com/file/dohu6trct ... +Copie.odt

Thanks for your help,

[erbsenzahl]

Deine Datei ist korrupt und enthält nur ##### → 0-Werte. Sie kann nicht gerettet werden.

Your file is corrupt and contains only ##### → 0-values. It can't be restored.

Opened on Notepad++

The NUL values of Notepad++ are shown in Writer as ###

@RoryOF
Good link to tutorial -

[RoryOF]

I got nothing from your file. It is damaged.

This posting by John_Ha may be useful

See [Tutorial] How to find and un-delete Writer temporary files for instructions on how to identify and un-delete the temporary files Writer wrote while you were editing the file, and then deleted. You should be able to recover your file as it was when you last opened or saved it, or as it was when it was last saved with AutoRecovery.

You may also find previous versions of the file in the folder it is located in, but which have since been deleted.

To prevent this happening again, be leisurely in powering off your computer. Always use the correct shut down procedure for your operating system and give a few extra seconds after the OK message before switching off the power. Doing this is not a 100% guarantee that your file won't be lost, but long-time computer users are usually careful in powering down and we get few or no damaged files.

[jaqueline]

Okay .

Thank you guys for your try.

[michielvanduin]

My daughter (age 10) is writing a story for months now. And now the file is corrupt. The whole family is looking at me to solve this, I am supposed to be the expert, only I am not. I tried to unzip the file, but the file will not be unzipped. I have uploaded the file, if anyone could try to restore this file I would be very, very grateful.

de avonturen van grote olifantenfamilie.odt

(60.36 KiB) Downloaded 164 times

And yes, I know, regular backups should have been made. From now on, they will be.

[RoryOF]

I got nothing from your file and I doubt that more complex tools than I use will have greater success..

This posting by John_Ha may be useful
See [Tutorial] How to find and un-delete Writer temporary files for instructions on how to identify and un-delete the temporary files Writer wrote while you were editing the file, and then deleted. You should be able to recover your file as it was when you last opened or saved it, or as it was when it was last saved with AutoRecovery.

You may also find previous versions of the file in the folder it is located in, but which have since been deleted.

If the above doesn't work download Recuva from
https://www.piriform.com/recuva
and see if it can find any deleted temporary files containing some or all of the data.

[michielvanduin]

Thanks, I am going to try those options when I get back home! (I must now teach some physics)

[RoryOF]

It is important to remember that much use of a computer after loss of an OpenOffice (or any) file can overwrite such deleted files, as the computer thinks that such space is now free for use.

As a consolation to your daughter, remind her that the rewrite of a story is often much better than the initial writing. Also much quicker than the first writing, as a good writer will have the picture of it in his/her mind.

[michielvanduin]

Thanks a lot! I managed to find a temporary file with photorec, the document is complete again! As I was not very sure that I would find anything, I did offer my daughter the consolation that you suggested. It worked pretty well, but she was still very happy to have her story back. She was very impressed that someone from far-away Ireland cared and helped (and so am I!). Thanks again.

[RoryOF]

Glad to have helped. Encourage her to continue writing and make regular backups.

[jojo123]

Hello,
this is a great thread, active since a decade.
I have a broken odt-file. My problem is that not even the decompression works. I tried it with unzip, 7zip, Ark (on Ubuntu) and the decompression always results in an empty content.xml. The size of the odt-file is ok and opening the file with Ark (a graphical interface) it informs me that the content.xml has a 200kb size in uncompressed and 30kb in compressed form, so it doesn't seem to be empty. After decompressing it is of 0 Byte size. Opening the file with any textprocessing software shows 1000 pages with meaningless character-strings but not uniform characters nor 'NULL'. So i have some hope.
I appreciate any hint. Thank you very much.

[RoryOF]

If you upload your file to the forum or put it to a file sharing site, someone will look at it for you. I would not hold out much hope. Try running an undelete utility such as Recuva to see if you can find a deleted partial file. The sooner you do this the better.

How did your file corrupt? Was it a SIGSEGV error> These were reported for OO 4 and Ubuntu 16.04; they do not occur on Xubuntu 16.04.

[acknak]

It's difficult to suggest anything without having the file to examine. Once the archive structure is damaged, the odds are long against recovering the document. For more information on this kind of file damage, see [Tutorial] The Dreaded Pound Signs: file reduced to ####

For suggestions on recovering deleted temporary files, see:
[rel]viewtopic.php?p=371983[/rel]

[jojo123]

hi RoryOF and acknak,
thank you for your comments. Unfortunaly the recuva strategy did not help.
I have sent you a message with the link to the file.

[RoryOF]

I've tried using several methods and get nothing from it.

[acknak]

... I have sent you a message with the link to the file.

Some of the graphics might be recoverable but the document content (content.xml ) is not present in the damaged archive. Sorry.

[RoryOF]

I didn't go beyond content.xml.

[jojo123]

Thank you both very much for trying! Unfortunately the graphics are not the important part.

[John_Ha]

See [Tutorial] How to find and un-delete Writer temporary files for detailed instructions on how to recover your file as it was when you last opened or saved it, or as it was when it was last saved with AutoRecovery.

You may also find previous versions of the file in the folder it is located in, but which have since been deleted.

There are also detailed instructions for how to un-delete the temporary files Writer wrote while you were editing the file, and then deleted - this will recover your file as it was when you last opened or you last saved it.

[agusia]

Hello everyone,

I am using a translating open source software (omega t) which automatically generates ODT files once the translation is done. Unfortunately, I am now finding myself with a corrupt file, and I'm afraid that I will loose all the translation that I have done so far! I tried to see if I can fix the file myself, but was unsuccessful. I attach it here, thank you so much for your help! In the future I will try to save a copy of the file each time I generate it...

[RoryOF]

Try the attached file. Please ensure that formatting is as you require (I don't think I cut any text content).

[agusia]

Thank you so much! I can open the file as a text document, but unfortunately cannot use it anymore in the translating software, since I suppose that the same error that was in the text file is still present in the omega-t document (and is getting re-written each time I try to generate the document as ODT again). Are you able to know what was the error in the document? If so I can try to fix it in the omega-t software. If not, then I will have to finish the translation of the whole document and then ask for your help once again in a few days to help me fix the error the final document... Sorry about the complication, and thank you so much for your help!

[RoryOF]

From memory there were two duplicated XML tags at different locations; I removed these. If he is online later, John_Ha can extract the text content with no formatting. The internal XML content in the file (after repair) passed analysis as being well-formed.

[John_Ha]

If he is online later, John_Ha can extract the text content with no formatting.

See attached file of just the text. I used Notepad++ and went Search > Replace ..., with search argument <[^>]+> and replace argument blank. Tick Regular Expressions. Click Replace All. Save as a .TXT file.

[acknak]

... Are you able to know what was the error in the document? If so I can try to fix it in the omega-t software....

Just a guess, but one common problem in recent OO versions has to do with comments attached to a range of text. This is a recently-added feature and seems to cause problems in some situations. If you have such comments (or bookmarks) in your document, try changing those to use a simple point anchor instead of a range.

[RoryOF]

From memory (I just did the task and didn't make notes of what I was doing) the repeated tags were <\text:span>.

[agusia]

Thank you all very much for your help. I can't seem to be able to fix the problem in the translating software. So if that's ok I am going to have to finish the translation like this, and ask you once again for your help once it is finished (it should be exactly the same error, but only in the very final file). Before I do this though, I'll try to erase all the comments added to the file with the translating software: maybe just like acknak wrote, it will fix the problem... Thank you!

[Blazej_Zych]

Odwołanie ZUS 08.01.2017 BZ.odt

Anyone - could you please help me with ODT file breakdown? Its XML error - the error is that "internal formatting is wrong on content.xml on the 2,4657" and I need restored file literally today - is there any chance someone would help?
My email is zychblazej@gmail.com and the file to restore is attached. If anyone is able to do this and send restored file to my email it would be my saviour!!

Edit: File deleted for confidentiality

[keme]

When I looked at the content I noticed a huge list of items which seemed to be paragraph styles. I decided that with the complexity of that file, my knowledge of the ODF file structure was insufficient to attempt a repair. However, it seemed to me that the error lay in the style tags rather than in textual content. I may well be mistaken about this (I only had a basic text editor available at the time).

Just a thought, a shot in the dark, more or less: If you are generating new files from the same source, you might try to narrow down the selection of font faces and sizes in use, if there are options for that within the software you are using. This may also help to clean up the file structure. (I am not at all familiar with the Omega T software. If you don't see what I mean, it is most likely not relevant to the issue.)