[Hint] How did I fix my ODT file

[anilrao71]

please help me to get the content.xml file repaired. i am not a tech savvy person.

[RoryOF]

There are XML validators at
http://www.w3schools.com/xml/xml_validator.asp
and at
http://www.xmlvalidation.com/
amongst other places.

Pass your content.xml through either (or both) of these and see what they tell you about it.

[anilrao71]

XML Validator gives this error "This page contains the following errors: error on line 2 at column 552168:opening and ending tag mismatch: p line 0 and ta"
The other website returns with nothing

[John_Ha]

If you want someone to look at the file for you then upload the entire ODT file here - the size limit is 128kB.

If the file is too big, then upload it to a file sharing site (like Mediafire.com) and tell us the address.

[anilrao71]

Hi thanks. I have uploaded the file on mediafire, below is the link. Please help me to get this file back.

http://www.mediafire.com/view/d9lsu0k01 ... lation.ods

[John_Ha]

Hi thanks. I have uploaded the file on mediafire, below is the link. Please help me to get this file back.

http://www.mediafire.com/view/d9lsu0k01 ... lation.ods

Can you please check that you can download the file and that you have made it public - I get "Temporarily unavailable" error message.

Also it looks like the file name is calculation.ods which suggests it is a spreadsheet.

[anilrao71]

Sorry wrong link, instead of download i the link had view. Please find below the correct link for the file
http://www.mediafire.com/download/d9lsu ... lation.ods

[acknak]

Here's one that opens, but some (maybe a lot) of the data can't be recovered.

What I had to cut out to fix the document is in the attached zip. It's not usable as far as I can see, but you can check for yourself.

[John_Ha]

I have copied out some lines before and after the error at line 2 at character 813573. The error is where I added <<<< ERROR - "14.54193</ta>". The </ta> should be ba closing tag for an opening one <ta>, but AOO does not use a tag pair <ta> ... </ta>, so there is corruption here. The next line "</tab7le-ce15<43ext:p>" is obviously corrupted, as are many more lines following lines.

As you can see by comparing similar lines, there are several more errors in the next few lines, suggesting that there will be many errors - far too many to correct manually - in the file. I think that your file has been completely destroyed and your chance of retrieving much from it is slim.

Edit: In fact, it appears that all lines above the error are correct, and all lines below the error are corrupted. However, at least some lines must be missing because there are no matching closing tabs in either the correct, or the corrupted, stuff. If I was to guess, I would say that AOO was writing the file out, and only got half way through writing it out. AOO then somehow picked up some garbled data and added it to the end of the file, and then zipped the "good stuff, but not complete, with bad stuff added on" into the ODT file as content.xml. The corrupted file does not have proper closing tags at its end suggesting that the good file was truncated before having the bad stuff added on. The bad stuff does not have anything like closing tags at its end. The bad stuff is a puzzle as it is almost certainly data from the same spreadsheet, but it is peculiarly corrupted. Is it perhaps something that was still in memory? or in a temporary file? from an earlier AutoSave - we believe that AOO creates a new temporary file every time the spreadsheet is AutoSaved or Saved. But if so, why is it corrupted at the byte level (</tab7le-ce15 ... is presumably </table-cell ...) but many consecutive bytes are still OK as in (<table:table-cell table:style-name="ce8" table:formula449f:=SUM([.J1118:.J1119])" office:value-type="float"). Most of the line is correct - only ' 449 ' is wrong as it should be ' ="o ' ??? I would have thought the developers could throw light on this.

Unfortunately no-one knows why these errors occur as they are rare, and no-one has been able to find a way to make them occur. As such, it is very difficulty to debug them, other than to say don't power off too quickly, don't remove USB memory sticks without safely ejecting them. One suggestion is that if you close AOO, then immediately open it before Windows has finished closing it properly, it might cause these errors. But no-one knows. If you can remember EXACTLY what you did to create this error, please try again and see if you can force the error to happen.

acknak - did you just cut everything below the error, and then add matching closing tags at the bottom of the file?

Code: Select all   Expand viewCollapse view

<table:table-cell table:number-columns-repeated="2"/>
<table:table-cell table:style-name="ce8" table:formula="of:=SUM([.E1118:.E1119])" office:value-type="float" office:value="2786.93786354839">
  <text:p>2787</text:p>
</table:table-cell>

<<<<   Note that this next line has a value 14.5419387755102 which is similar to the 14.54193 in the line with the error.

<table:table-cell table:style-name="ce8" table:formula="of:=SUM([.F1118:.F1119])" office:value-type="float" office:value="14.5419387755102">
  <text:p>15</text:p>
</table:table-cell>

<table:table-cell table:number-columns-repeated="3"/>
<table:table-cell table:style-name="ce8" table:formula="of:=SUM([.J1118:.J1119])" office:value-type="float" office:value="229.587903576888">
  <text:p>230</text:p>
</table:table-cell>

<table:table-cell table:style-name="ce8" table:formula="of:=SUM([.K1118:.K1119])" office:value-type="float" office:value="229.58783013888">
  <text:p>230</text:p>
</table:table-cell>

<table:table-cell table:number-columns-repeated="8"/>
</table:table-row>
  <table:table-row table:style-name="ro1" table:number-rows-repeated="5">
  <table:table-cell table:style-name="Default" table:number-columns-repeated="2"/>
  <table:table-cell table:number-columns-repeated="17"/>
</table:table-row>

<table:table-row table:style-name="ro1">
<table:table-cell table:style-name="Default"/>
<table:table-cell table:style-name="ce3" office:value-type="string">
<text:p>PMS (TM)e:style-name="ce8" table:formula="of:=SUM([.F1118:.ble:table-ce:value-type="float" office:value="14.54193</ta>

  <<<<<< ERROR reported as tag mismatch at ..193</ta, but the whole line is corrupted.

</tab7le-ce15<43ext:p>
</table:table-cell>

<table:table-cell table:number-columns-repeated="3"/>
<table:table-cell table:style-name="ce8" table:formula449f:=SUM([.J1118:.J1119])" office:value-type="float" office:value="229.587903576888">
  <text:p>230</text:p>
</table:table-cell>

<table:table-cell tabell table:n="2029.44550952381">
<text:p>2029.45</text:p>5.45</text:p>5.:table-cell>

<table:table-cell table:number-columns-repeated="3"/>
<table:table-cell table:style-name="ce8" table:formula449f:=SUM([.J1118:.J1119])" office:value-258table-cell>
<table:table-cell table:style1e:table-celr-columns-repeated="2"/>
<table:table-cell table:style-name="ce8" table:formula="of:=SUM([.H1094:.H1095])" office:value-type="float" office:value="2049.7399.7e:table-cell7le:table-cel74me="ce8" table:formula="of:=SUM([.E11187able:table-c7="840">
<text:p>840.00</text:p>
</table:table-cell>

<table:table-c"float" off.45</text:p>5.45</text:p>5.:table-cell>
<table:table-cell table:number-columns-repeated="389226.20</text:p>
</table:table-cell>

<table:me="ce6" table:formula="of:=SUM([.B1102:.B1114])" office:value-type="float" office:value="2047675.82">71672">
  <text:p>2.27</text:p>
</table:table-cell.>5.:table-cell>
<table:able:table-..ble:table-47 office:value-type="float" office:value="2047675.82">7:style-name="ce4"/>
<table:table-cell table:number-columnsxt:2029.44550952381">
  <text:p>2029.45</text:p>51cell>
<table:table-cell table:number-columns-repeated="11"/>
</table:table-row>
<table:table-row tab0ble:style-name="ce8" table:formula449f:=SUM([.J1118:.J1119])" office:value-258table-cell>
<table:table-cellce:value-ty5le-cell table

[acknak]

... acknak - did you just cut everything below the error, and then add matching closing tags at the bottom of the file?

Precisely.

I don't know of anything further to do here--the rest of the xml seems too badly damaged. I can see various fragments of (possibly) intact data but I'm not sure it's worth the time to comb through them. That's why I left it up to the poster.

Because the zip archive is correct--that is, it unpacks without errors, the xml data must have been corrupted before it was placed into the archive. I don't know what that means, but it could be a clue for someone familiar with OO's document-save architecture.

[jake.gatehouse]

Was looking for help recovering this file, tried changing it to zip and repairing it, but was unable to find a content.xml file within, was hoping someone with more experience could help?

http://www.mediafire.com/view/fr9ntffce ... source.odt

[RoryOF]

Your file is not currently available from the mediafire link.

[jake.gatehouse]

http://www.mediafire.com/view/fr9ntffce ... source.odt

i'm hoping this one will work

[John_Ha]

It doesn't

Can you please check that you can download the file, and that you have made it public - I get "Temporarily unavailable" error message.

[jake.gatehouse]

It comes up temporarily unavailable for me as well, because the file is corrupted, the download link up in the top right corner is still working fine though

[jake.gatehouse]

http://www.mediafire.com/download/fr9nt ... source.odt

this is a link straight to the download page, hopefully it will work for you.

[John_Ha]

Thanks - that worked.

I regret that your file is damaged beyond repair and content.xml is lost. I did the following

1 Tried to open the odt file using 7-zip - it said it was damaged

2 Renamed it to name of source.zip and opened it with PKZip for Windows. It offered to fix it - I accepted. It created pkfixed.zip which was 1,039Kb compared with name of source.odt which was only 996kB. When I opened pkfixed.zip I got as below - note there is no content.xml file.

Also whereas many of the images in the pictures file were OK, some were damaged and would not open.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news ...

Can you remember exactly what happened to cause the file to be damaged?

[jake.gatehouse]

I've been trying to fix it for a student at the school i work at, it's a piece of her coursework that got corrupted, so am unsure how it happened.
Thankyou for taking a look at it anyway.

[RoryOF]

Frequently such corruption is caused by overspeedy shutdown of the computer. At the end of an editing session, Users often close OpenOffice then hit the power switch/snap the lid shut, which doesn't allow the write buffers (hardware and software) time to flush. It is also unwise to sleep/hibernate a computer with an open OpenOffice document; this has been reported to cause corruption. If using a USB stick as transfer medium, the correct USB removal protocol for the operating system should be followed. It is also unwise to work direct to a USB stick.

[HelenaMcTurf]

Hello,

Can anyone please help me?

I have a corrupt ODT file that I am not able to recover through OpenOffice. I have tried the method on this first page, changing to ZIP, but when I try to open or extract it just says the file is empty or something, I can't get any XML file.

I am lost. Is there anything else to try?

Here is the file I have: https://db.tt/7MXA9ozk

My computer crashed... It's only a few months old, and is good spec, but I'm not sure I'm liking this Windows 8 stuff. Seems to be buggy or something, crashes all the time

If anyone can help it would be appreciated!

[John_Ha]

I am sorry to say that you have lost everything in the file - it is full of zeros - see below where I opened the file with the (free) Hex Editor HxD. It looks like you created a new file, and your PC crashed before you had saved it - that is why the file is full of zeros.

How to minimise the effect of its happening it in future.

1 Always take a backup of changed files every day.

2 Always set AutoRecovery to save a copy of the file every few minutes while you are working on it - it protects against things like power cuts, OS freezes etc. Tools > Options > Load/Save > General

3 Always set Create a backup copy to ON - this keeps the previously saved version of the file. Tools > Options > Load/Save > General

4 Do not be over quick to power down or hibernate your computer. Especially, do not shut down AOO, and then quickly start it up - it is thought this might cause problems.

5 Be very careful if you save to a USB stick - be sure to Eject it safely.

Why? In order speed up PC when talking to slow things like memory sticks, Windows writes the data to a high speed buffer, and then copies the data slow-time to the USB stick. If you pull the memory stick out before the buffer has been written, you lose that data. See Microsoft's Safely remove devices from your computer for more information. I think Windows 7 can be set up so as to not to use the write buffer, and always write direct to the USB stick, but I forget how.

If you are lucky, you might be able to recover the temporary files AOO created when you were editing the file - but only if you are working and saving as .odt - it does not work for .doc files. These temporary files were deleted when you shut down AOO so you will be searching for deleted files and attempting to recover them. This can be successful, but the deleted files may already have been overwritten. See Re: User error. Contents of Writer file deleted. for detailed instructions of how to identify deleted temporary files, and how to un-delete them using Recuva, a free un-deleter utility.

Edit: Edited to add HxD Editor information and fix link

[Alaskahsm]

Can someone please help. I have been working on editing my novel for the last few days and got an error message. The instuctions to recover it are greek to me.
Here is the file.
Resolved

[Alaskahsm]

Hi Again,
I was able to get it into a zip, but when I try to open the content.xml there is nothing there, however when I look at the source everything is there, but I still don't know how to get it to open.

[acknak]

Your link is not working for me: it says "temporarily unavailable". Anyone else have any luck with it?

[floris v]

Yes, went fine. AOO reported an xml error though.

Attachment removed as per author's request.

[Alaskahsm]

So what do I need to do for the error? I am not tech savvy.

[acknak]

Turned out to be a simple fix. Make sure to save regular backup copies, to different files, in case something happens again.

[Alaskahsm]

Oh thank you. You're a lifesaver.

[sandrorussell]

Hi everyone!

While drafting a chapter of my business plan, power suddenly went off.
On rebooting the OS (Windows 7) a few mins later, the file was there along with its size (3.78MB), but contents were turned into a long series of hashes.

I read through this entire thread and I tried to extract the xml content from the doc's zip archive, but can't even find the xml, let alone access it and work with it! in fact WinRAR returns the following message: "no archive found / the archive is unknown format or damaged".

I've uploaded my file on MediaFire. Any help would be most appreciated!
https://www.mediafire.com/?8x97a58645tf9xc

Cheers,
Alessandro

[sandrorussell]

Hello everyone!

While drafting a chapter of my business plan, there was a power cut and my laptop went off. On rebooting the system (windows 7) I found my file was still there, along with its size (3.7 MB), but its contents had been all turned to a long series of hashes.
- I looked up into the .tmp folder, but found nothing there;
- I looked for a backup file, but discovered the automatic file backup box was unticked (gRRRReat!)
- I' went through this entire thread, changed the file extension to .zip, then to .rar and attempted to extract the .xml content, but I did so in vain. The message returned was always the same: "The archive is either in unknown format or damaged";

Were I am going wrong?!? Can anyone gimme a hint?

I've uploaded the corrupt file on MediaFire. ANY help would be most appreciated.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/8x97a ... ervizi.odt

Thanks
Alessandro