ODS file asks for text import then opens blank

[Freyaness]

If anyone can help me I'd greatly appreciate it. I have a master .ods file for tracking my hours for clients. It was working fine, until this morning. Now all of the sudden it asks for "Text Import" and opens blank. I'm not exactly sure why or how this happened - nothing abnormal has happened overnight.

I tried a few .ods recovery programs but to no avail. If there's any way that you guys know to recover this file, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

[acknak]

This situation usually means that the file is damaged and OOo doesn't know how to deal with the data in that file. The only real solution is to go to a backup copy.

On rare occasions, some of the data can be recovered from a damaged file. If you want to attach your file here, I expect someone can take a look at it.

[Freyaness]

Is there someone I can send it to for a review from OOO via email. I'd rather not make this particular file available to everyone.

[acknak]

Sure; I can take a look. Click the email icon to the right of this post. I'll reply with an address that accepts attachments.

[Freyaness]

For others looking for an answer to this issue - it was discovered that the file was corrupted beyond repair.

Unfortunately in the digital world, having automatic backups of important files is the only thing you can do to make sure that you won't lose them for good!

[acknak]

Did you look for the temporary file? Some people have been able to recover the document from that, although I'm not entirely sure where to look or what to look for.

See [Tutorial] The OOo user profile for details, or one of the other file recovery threads here.

For anyone keeping score, the file was all zeros again.

[kingfisher]

The locations of the temporary and backup files are shown in Tools > Options > OO > Paths unless Apache has changed that.

[garto]

I have the exact same problem with a file that is quite crucial to me. I will attach it to this post, if someone could take a look to see if it is salvageable I would greatly appreciate it.
Thanks

[RoryOF]

I'm getting nothing from it, but there are better recovery people on the Forum than me, so don't give up all hope yet.

Edit: My result was a file of null characters.

[acknak]

Yep. Nothing there but zeroes--no data to recover.

[sureshkumarpm]

When I open .ods file, its asking text import option and its goes blank. Kindly
help to address this issue

[RoryOF]

Damaged file - use a backup.

[sureshkumarpm]

Sorry.. I dont have the backup in the users/openoffice/backup folders. Please advice

[RoryOF]

You could try running either PhotoRec or Recuva in the hope that they will find a deleted older file or a delete temporary file. These will not be fast applications.

[jimmylam]

I'm having the same problem, 1 of my ods file turned overnight, problem seem to happened after i upgraded to Windows 10, not sure if its related.
i had a one month old backup and retype everything in twice, the 1st time it lasted a week before turning into "text import" and the second time only lasted a night.

[Mtesigwa Mtebe]

i have the same problem, could someone help me with my file

[John_Ha]

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 the file as it was when you opened it, or at a recent AutoSave if you are using AutoSave.

I guess you don't have Tools > Options > Load/Save > Save a backup copy ticked ...

[omnivorist]

I have backups going back a long way but the recovered files all show the same text import problem. Very strange.
My feeling is that this is NOT to do with a corrupt file but originates with a bug in an Open Office release. (Just a hunch)

[petronilo]

Hi all: the same thing happened to me and I am kicking myself. I am usually religious about backups and this is one of the very few times that I go several weeks without one, and this Calc file, essential to me, appears to have been corrupted (Text import prompt, then opens a blank sheet). It is possible that it was due to a hasty shutdown, but the file still appears to be its normal size, implying that there is still information there, and I can't imagine that saving improperly would have damaged *all* of the info?

I have scoured the forums and tried all of the things I found (converting to ZIP file, looking for older temp files, etc). Currently running a Recuva "deep scan" since the initial scan found nothing relevant. If somebody more computer-savvy than I could have a look at the file (here attached) I would be infinitely grateful. NOTE: the file size is 142kb, too big to upload here, so I compressed to a ZIP. Thanks a million-- Pete

[robleyd]

Unfortunately the file consists of nothing but null bytes - there is no recoverable data whatsoever. Your only hope at this stage, if you have no earlier backups, is that Recuva may come up with something useful.

[petronilo]

Thanks a lot for trying David. What about this file (also attached)? Recuva found it from earlier in September -- it says the state is "Very Poor", which is better than "Unrecoverable" but still not very promising. From the Text Import prompt, it looks like this one actually has characters in it (not just blank spaces) but when I try to open it, OO tries and then closes. Wondering whether any parts of this might be salvageable (there is a lot of info in it on many sheets, so even recovering a bit of it would be valuable).

Thanks again in advance...
Peter

[robleyd]

Nothing recoverable from those files either I'm afraid. One - the smaller - was a valid AOO lock file, the other looks like a number of different files were tipped in a food processor and mixed together!

[petronilo]

Thanks David.
Hard to believe that a forced shut down would have caused all 142kb to revert to zeros... but you can believe I won't be doing that again.
Have a great day,
Peter

[RoryOF]

An OO file is a complex format; it is composed of several subfiles containing information about author, styles and content. The space is reserved for the content and filled with zeroes; if the write process is interrupted or not commenced that area is not filled, and all one can get is the zeroes of the prefill.

[waynelim1022]

I also meet this problem
I open the file, it comes out with text import,

after open the file, it become blank.

can someone help me to see it, please
this is very important for me, please help

[robleyd]

Your file will have no recoverable data in it. If you have a backup - it is important so you do back it up regularly? - use the backup. If not, see [Tutorial] How to find and un-delete Writer temporary files which is also applicable to Calc files.

[John_Ha]

There is (literally) nothing in your file - it is full of NUL characters.