OpenOffice Calc spreadsheet will not open!

[mileena]

I have OpenOffice 4.1.4 and am using Windows 7 Home on a desktop.

When I click to open the OO spreadsheet, it won't open. I get this bizarre OO window:



How do I open this?

If I click "Ok" on the pop-up window, I get this bizarre file:



I went to go to my OpenOffce backup folder and opened the .bak spreadsheet (after I renamed it to .ods). That worked fine.

Why is this happening? Does it have anything to do my me storing the orignal file on a portable My Passport Ultra WD hard drive? I have the password enabled so if the hard drive goes to sleep, I need to re-enter the password to gain access to my files on it. Sometimes I leave a folder open and don't realize it has gone to sleep. When I try to open am OO file, it says it can't be accessed or is corrupt. But then I just enter thepassword and it is ok. But I did have one OO file that did go corrupt recently. I think it might have to do with that password issue above and closing the doc when the hard drive is asleep? If so, I am just going to disable password access.

[Zizi64]

Why is this happening? Does it have anything to do my me storing the orignal file on a portable My Passport Ultra WD hard drive?

The removable devices often causes such issues.
Do not work directly on a removable device. Use it as a backup storing device: save a COPY of your files to the removable device with a file manager software AFTER the editing and saving the file on the local (built-in) storage device.

Wait some minutes after the storaging procedure SEEMS to be completed before dou disconnect it. The physical writing prosedure on the removable device (from the buffer memory of the removable devize to the physical storage disc - if it is a magnetic HDD) will be completed later.

[robleyd]

The file, which you show images of above, appears to be something other than an OpenOffice spreadsheet. It is a slight possibility that files on your removable drive have somehow been corrupted?

If you want us to try and work out what the problem file really is, you could upload it and someone will take a look at it for you.

[Forum] How to attach a document here Note maximum file size is 128K. If your file is larger, use a file sharing site such as Mediafire.

[mileena]

The file, which you show images of above, appears to be something other than an OpenOffice spreadsheet. It is a slight possibility that files on your removable drive have somehow been corrupted?

If you want us to try and work out what the problem file really is, you could upload it and someone will take a look at it for you.

[Forum] How to attach a document here Note maximum file size is 128K. If your file is larger, use a file sharing site such as Mediafire.

Hi robleyd, thank you! Here is the file then. Sorry for the typos in the title. My keyboard keys are hard to push.

I hope people can solve this problem! I don't want to switch to Microsoft Office. I love OpenOffice! Much better to use!

[mileena]

Why is this happening? Does it have anything to do my me storing the orignal file on a portable My Passport Ultra WD hard drive?

The removable devices often causes such issues.
Do not work directly on a removable device. Use it as a backup storing device: save a COPY of your files to the removable device with a file manager software AFTER the editing and saving the file on the local (built-in) storage device.

Wait some minutes after the storaging procedure SEEMS to be completed before dou disconnect it. The physical writing prosedure on the removable device (from the buffer memory of the removable devize to the physical storage disc - if it is a magnetic HDD) will be completed later.

Thank Zizi64! I knew it had to be my portable 3.5" hard drive. Never had that problem with Seagate, Toshiba, Iomega, or Hitachi hard drive. Not until Western Digital. I will use my main C drive to do all OO files, and then copy. I had to switch to portable drive since my videos and pics were too big for my small 1 TB C drive, but the OO docs should fit!

I also never disconnect my portable hard drives until I shut down the computer and USB hub. I ruined a Toshiba drive that way, even though I had properly ejected it first on Windows.

[robleyd]

That file appears to be a compressed javascript file. The copyright at the top of it suggests it originated at a place that claims "Sailthru is the largest sender of personalized email in the world" so it may be originally be part of a document that you received by email, or from a site you visited from a link in an email.

In any case it isn't an OpenOffice file. It may be that somehow the File Allocation Table on your removable device has been damaged, and is putting parts of files into other files. It might be worth your while running chkdsk on the device; you may find other files have been damaged as well.

[mileena]

That file appears to be a compressed javascript file. The copyright at the top of it suggests it originated at a place that claims "Sailthru is the largest sender of personalized email in the world" so it may be originally be part of a document that you received by email, or from a site you visited from a link in an email.

In any case it isn't an OpenOffice file. It may be that somehow the File Allocation Table on your removable device has been damaged, and is putting parts of files into other files. It might be worth your while running chkdsk on the device; you may find other files have been damaged as well.

Thanks robleyd. I appreciate you checking. I assure you that was not a javascript file or from an email. I designed the spreadsheet myself to add up some columns of numbers to compare. But I will run chdsk though. I hope nothing else is damaged! At least the backup OO files are not damaged.

[RoryOF]

The file is quite sick! I suspect the intrusive javascript elements are due to some failure or closedown of the computer or perhaps improper removal of an external drive before the file was fully written by OpenOffice, perhaps even before the archive program used had initialised the area for the sub-file content.xml. Normally in a file failure we see the area prepared for content.xml intialised to zeros, but I think the failure occurred just before that.

I have had no problems in writing to external USB hard drives, provided the correct USB device removal protocol is observed leisurely (to allow for flushing of internal memory caches in the device). I do not recommend working directly to USB keys, however.

[mileena]

The file is quite sick! I suspect the intrusive javascript elements are due to some failure or closedown of the computer or perhaps improper removal of an external drive before the file was fully written by OpenOffice, perhaps even before the archive program used had initialised the area for the sub-file content.xml. Normally in a file failure we see the area prepared for content.xml intialised to zeros, but I think the failure occurred just before that.

I have had no problems in writing to external USB hard drives, provided the correct USB device removal protocol is observed leisurely (to allow for flushing of internal memory caches in the device). I do not recommend working directly to USB keys, however.

Yep, I did have a crash about a month ago. Maybe that is why. I will take your advice and too, and only write directly to the main C drive. I will then copy to the portable drive.

I am also running CHDSK as we speak!

[robleyd]

I assure you that was not a javascript file

It may not have been once, but it certainly is now. Open the file with Notepad - you'll need to right click on it and select Open with - and you will see what is in the file now.

[RoryOF]

It will be interesting to see if the OP can identify the contents with (perhaps) some earlier filer, which may have used the disk space for temporary purposes.

[mileena]

I assure you that was not a javascript file

It may not have been once, but it certainly is now. Open the file with Notepad - you'll need to right click on it and select Open with - and you will see what is in the file now.

Thanks. I just checked. Yep...you are right...some kind of javascript. Weird.

[mileena]

It will be interesting to see if the OP can identify the contents with (perhaps) some earlier filer, which may have used the disk space for temporary purposes.

The script belongs to Sailthru, which is a marketing tracker used by eBay, Walmart, etc. I know I have visited a ton of car dealer sites in the past few months since I have been shopping for a new car. Maybe that is it.

https://www.sailthru.com/

[mileena]

Well I cannot copy my OO files from my portable drive to my C drive (main hard drive on computer). 500 of my files are too long in character allotment to be copied. I have to find a way to change the name of the "Documents" folder on my C drive to "My Docs", since that is the name of the folder on my portable drive. This will shorten the character length. Or I can copy all of my OO files to the "Music" folder instead. Will that work?

[robleyd]

You can place your AOO files anywhere you like provided you have right of access to the target directory; you could even create a new directory in your user space for AOO files - don't forget to change the default save location in AOO (Tools | Options | OpenOffice | Paths) if you want to save to your new location by default.

It seems Windows 7 has a limit on the length of a path + filename; you may wish to consider shorter, but still descriptive filenames that are not a sentence long

[mileena]

You can place your AOO files anywhere you like provided you have right of access to the target directory; you could even create a new directory in your user space for AOO files - don't forget to change the default save location in AOO (Tools | Options | OpenOffice | Paths) if you want to save to your new location by default.

It seems Windows 7 has a limit on the length of a path + filename; you may wish to consider shorter, but still descriptive filenames that are not a sentence long

You're right!

The problem is whebn I save an html doc (a webpage), there are tons of files that are super long. These I can't shorten. But I il try that new directory trick! I never thought of that.