[Solved] .ODS File Won't Load

[linda77]

[Solved]

Hi

I'm using 2.3.1 on a PC and have one .ods file that won't load (though it used to load fine).

All that happens is that the blue 'loading' squares at the bottom of the page go about way across and then freeze, prompting a File Not Responding message when I close Open Office.

I've also tried to open it using Open Office on a Mac but have the same problem.

Is there any way I can retrieve the contents of the file? It's quite important...

Thanks in advance.

[acknak]

If you can attach it here, we can have a try at recovering it.

If it's something you can't share, you can email it (see my profile, "interests").

[linda77]

Hi

Many thanks for your reply. I'm afraid it contains sensitive information so I hope you'll understand that I'm not comfortable with sharing it.

Is there anything I can try myself?

[acknak]

Understood; no problem.

Try this thread: [Hint] How did I fix my ODT file

[linda77]

Hello,

It took some hours to figure out, how to fix it, so I want to share my solution with other OO users

First, let's call our nonopening ODT file as "bad.odt".

1. make backup FIRST -> "$ cp bad.odt bad_original.odt"
2. make new directory-> "$ mkdir repair"
3. copy bad.odt to repair directorty "$ cp bad.odt repair"
4. change default directory to repair -> "$ cd repair"
5. unzip bad.odt -> "$ unzip bad.odt"
6. after unzipping you get bunch of files and directory's under repair , find content.xml and open it whit your favorite text editor -> "$ kate content.xml"
7. use "find" function to find out, if you have XML tag "<office:automatic-styles>" (somewhere at the beginning of document) and XML tag "</office:automatic-styles>" (somewhere, middle of document). If you have, then delete them and all data between them. Be sure, that you don't delete more or less!
8. save content.xml (keep original name and place!)
9. zip extracted data back to one ODT document -> "$ zip -r ./bad_repaired.odt ./*"
10. try to open repaired document -> "$ ooffice ./bad_repaired.odt"

... and if are you lucky, then OO is able to open your document again

Well, I got back my text and pictures, but the price was - no styles (font size; bold; heading etc...)

If your document do not opening and you get message like "Format error discovered in the file in sub-document context.xml at ...",
then you broke XML structure and must go back to "STEP ONE" ant try to be more careful with deleting things.

PS1: if you get CRC errors, when unzipping ODT, then my solution probable can't help you
PS2: I tried also insert "bad.odt" into new document, but still got "Error reading file" message
PS3: and " META-INF/manifest.xml file " trick did not help also

If someone what to investigate my broken ODT file, then it can be downloaded from -> http://adsl213.pointclark.net/Eksam.odt

BR,
Ajut

Hi again

Thanks for that, but this is waaay over my head - I think it's probably the same problem as I did apply styles to cells - font size, background colors etc - but the above may as well be a foreign language in terms of solving my problem! Is there a plain English description of how to get my file back anywhere?

Hoping so!

Many thanks

Linda

[linda77]

... OK I've got as far as unzipping the file and editing the content.xml file to get rid of the styles, but how do I get all the files back together as a .ods file? The software only wants to do a .zip file...

Any help gratefully appreciated!

[Hagar Delest]

Just zip the new content.xml in the former zip file and rename it to .ods instead of .zip.

Thanks to add '[Solved]' at beginning of your first post title (edit button) if your issue has been fixed.

[linda77]

That's great - thanks!