Recovery problems

[laurak]

I was working on a document, went to paste a reference into the page and OpenOffice crashed. I was relieved to see it start the recovery process when I re-entered the program but instead of recovering the document, the recovery message came up, asking me to press next, which i did. then, after saying that the recovery had been successful, i received a message saying that there had been another error and that all documents waiting to be recovered would be saved. the document in now saved in 'my documents' but will not open, with OpenOffice or with any other programme. I'm really distressed as this document is of vital important and i can see that the content is intact, because the thumbnail of it in my documents shows the text on the page. Could anyone please help me with the recovery of the text, as it's really frustrating to see that it's intact, but i just can't open it!

[hol.sten]

I was working on a document,

OOo version? Operating system? File type? Size?

the document in now saved in 'my documents' but will not open, with OpenOffice or with any other programme.

What error message do you get now? What size has the recovered document?

BTW: Please read the Survival Guide for the forum.

[laurak]

It's version 2.3, my operating sytem is Windows XP, it's a writer document and it's saved as 46kb. I'm not longer recieving an error message, it just doesn't open. It looks like it's loading to open but then it doesn't. sorry, i'm not particularly ICT savvy :-s

[squenson]

Unfortunately, the thumbnail image is a separate image file and does not mean that the file can be recovered, but let's be optimistic and let's try to get things back right away! There are very good chances to be successful -- at least with the text, may be some formatting will be lost -- as a Writer file is a zip file with text inside.

First, check the presence of the file <your_file_name>.bak on your hard disk, in folder Documents and Settings. This is the last saved version of your document. If you find it, make a copy and rename the copy <your_File_Name>.odt, and then open that file. If you do not have it, may be you can post your damaged file here (tab Upload attachment below the Submit button in message creation window), or send it to my e-mail that I just sent you as a private message.

[hol.sten]

it's a writer document

Is it an ODT file? Telling only "writer document" is not very helpful.

[laurak]

Yes, it's an OpenDocument Text file. I'm having no luck, and don't really know what i'm doing. i don't want to mak matters worse so have emailed you the document. Thank you for your help

[squenson]

Good news! The file is an .odt file (standard format used by Writer) and the content.xml file inside seems to contain a lot of text. You can see it by yourself by making a copy of the file, then change its extension to zip, then double-click on it and look at the file called content.xml. I am now trying to find the reason why it does not open properly in Writer...

[laurak]

That's a relief! Thank you so much. Sorry to be dense, but could you tell me how to change the extension please?

[squenson]

If you do not see in My Computer the full file name with the extension .odt, then use the menu Tools > Folder Options > tab View and uncheck the box Hide extensions for known file types. Then you can single-click on the file name and safely rename it with .zip

[laurak]

I can't say thank you enough, you've literally saved a big chunk of my dissertation! Thank you so much, I would reccommend this forum to anyone. THANK YOU!!

[squenson]

I tried to recover the file but I did not succeed, so I am afraid that you will have to find the text within the content.xml file. On advice: this was a good warning, and you should save your file often (every 15 minutes is a good compromise) and also make a copy under another name (like <your_file_name>_yyyymmdd_hhmm.odt) after 4 to 8 hours of editing. It takes less than a minute and can be a life-saver!

[hol.sten]

I tried to recover the file but I did not succeed

What's wrong the content of the ODT file?

[squenson]

I don't know... Even if I just unzip and rezip the original file without any change, then OOo asks for for file format before trying to open it. With the original file, it simply crashes, ask for recovery, is successful and crashes again, a kind of perpetual motion system! You could send a PM to the owner and see if you can be more successful!

[hol.sten]

I tried to recover the file but I did not succeed

Question: Why has this thread been marked SOLVED? I don't get the point!

[Hagar Delest]

I can't say thank you enough, you've literally saved a big chunk of my dissertation! Thank you so much, I would reccommend this forum to anyone. THANK YOU!!

That's why.

So I remove the tag. Up to laurak to tag it.