[Solved] File Extension Not Saving Even With Automatic File

[wagtunes]

This just started happening on my wife's computer. She had no problem until today. I troubleshooted the problem, coming here, read the part about the automatic file name extension having to be checked, checked her computer, it wasn't, so we checked it and saved the file and the file still doesn't save with an extension.

So, there must be another problem with, hopefully, a solution.

Thank you in advance.

[RoryOF]

I would suggest powering off and then restarting the computer.

[wagtunes]

I would suggest powering off and then restarting the computer.

Did that.

[Bill]

No extension will be added to the existing file when you save the file after checking the automatic file name extension check box.. A new file should have been saved with the extension. AFAIK, the only way to add the extension to an existing file is by renaming the file.

[wagtunes]

No extension will be added to the existing file when you save the file after checking the automatic file name extension check box.. A new file should have been saved with the extension. AFAIK, the only way to add the extension to an existing file is by renaming the file.

Did that too. Tried creating a brand new file using Save As. Doesn't work.

[Bill]

Try resetting the user profile. Close OOo completely including the Quickstarter, then paste %appdata%\openoffice.org\3 in the Windows Explorer address bar (not Search) and press Enter. Rename the "user" folder and restart OOo.

[wagtunes]

Try resetting the user profile. Close OOo completely including the Quickstarter, then paste %appdata%\openoffice.org\3 in the Windows Explorer address bar (not Search) and press Enter. Rename the "user" folder and restart OOo.

Paste from where? Where am I copying it from in order to paste it?

[Bill]

%appdata%\openoffice.org\3

[wagtunes]

%appdata%\openoffice.org\3

Okay, I'll give that a go and see if it fixes the problem. So basically, OO is corrupted.

On my OO writer, all words are now marked as mispelled, but since I really don't use it that much, I don't care. Would just be nice if it worked.

[Bill]

OOo probably isn't corrupted, but if all words are marked as misspelled, that's an indicator that the user profile is corrupted. Things break. Sometimes we can help fix them.

[wagtunes]

OOo probably isn't corrupted, but if all words are marked as misspelled, that's an indicator that the user profile is corrupted. Things break. Sometimes we can help fix them.

What causes a user profile to get corrupted? Just curious.

[John_Ha]

This is almost certainly because, while the file qualifiers are actually there, Windows does not display them.

This is because of how you? your supplier? Microsoft? has set up Windows to Hide extensions for known file types. In what I think is probably the most idiotic thing Microsoft has ever done (and, trust me, there is a lot of competition for that title) Windows seems to arrive with Hide extensions for known file types set as default.

Start (assuming you have a Start button on W8 - another contender for the title; if you are fortunate enough to have one you may have to right-click it) > Control Panel > Folder Options > View > un-tick Hide extensions for known file types.

If this solves the problem, please click the Edit button on your original post and add [Solved] in front of your subject.

[wagtunes]

This is almost certainly because of how you have set up Windows to Hide extensions for known file types. In what I think is probably the most idiotic thing Microsoft has ever done (and, trust me, there is a lot of competition for that title) Windows seems to arrive with Hide extensions for known file types set as default.

Start (assuming you have a Start button on W8 - another contender for the title; if you are fortunate enough to have one you may have to right-click it) > Control Panel > Folder Options > View > un-tick Hide extensions for known file types.

Clipboard01.png

If this solves the problem, please click the Edit button on your original post and add [Solved] in front of your subject.

The thing is, my wife has been using Open Office for a good year if not longer. Why suddenly now does it stop working? It's the same computer. She's not a tech head, so she doesn't do things to her computer. In fact, she uses it for very little. Facebook, email and Open Office and that's it. There is just no reason for this to suddenly be acting up.

I could understand it if it was my computer. I am constantly doing things to it and I know Microsoft can be a pain. I've done plenty of system restores in my life and have had to reinstall plenty of programs. But my wife's lap top can't be any cleaner. There is literally nothing on it as far as software other than Open Office, the OS and Internet Explorer.

So none of this makes any sense.

** EDIT ** I just checked my PC and that box is checked and yet I have no problem with My OO saving the file as an actual OO or Microsoft Word file, depending on what format I choose.

[John_Ha]

Try this ...
1 Start Writer
2 File > New > Text document. Now type a few words
3 File > Save As ....
4 You should see a window like below.
5 Overtype Untitled.odt with fred. Do not type fred.odt or anything similar - just type fred and let Writer add the qualifier.
6 click Save.
7 Navigate to where you saved the file in 6. It will be called fred.odt.
8 Shut Writer. Start Writer > File > Recent documents ... This opens up a list of the last saved files and their qualifiers. What does it say? You should see ...\fred.odt

If this solves the problem, please click the Edit button on your original post and add [Solved] in front of your subject.

[John_Ha]

There is just no reason for this to suddenly be acting up.

Take heart from the Windows Haiku

Yesterday it worked
Today it is not working
Windows is like that

[John_Ha]

On my OO writer, all words are now marked as mispelled ... Would just be nice if it worked.

If you reset your profile without copying back everything, you lose your customisation, dictionaries, macros etc - see Resetting the user profile. The main spelling dictionary is stored in the ...\extensions folder.

You need to copy back everything from your old profile EXCEPT for the (possibly) corrupted registrymodifications.xcu file. This replaces the backup documents, main spelling dictionary, user dictionaries, AutoCorrects, macros (rebuilding the profile deletes all your macros), gallery, extensions, templates etc., which are otherwise lost. You may need to Show hidden files by Start > Control Panel > Folder Options > View ..., and tick Show hidden files.

My preferred way to Reset the Profile in a Windows machine is therefore:

1 Close AOO fully
2 Rename C:\Users\John\AppData\Roaming\OpenOffice\4\user to C:\Users\John\AppData\Roaming\OpenOffice\4\user_old
3 Start AOO. This creates a new (and empty of all customisation) profile C:\Users\John\AppData\Roaming\OpenOffice\4\user
4 Copy back everything from ...\user_old, EXCEPT for the registrymodifications.xcu file, to ...\user. You can do it a few folders at a time, checking as you go. Or, the simplest way to do it all at once, is:
i) delete the corrupted registrymodifications.xcu file ...\user_old. Copy the new registrymodifications.xcu file from ...\user to ...\user_old
ii) rename ...\user to ...\user_new. This gets it out of the way.
iii) rename ...\user_old to ...\user. This brings back the old profile with the new registrymodifications.xcu file.
If all is OK, delete ...\user_new in a few days time.

The Profile folders. It is almost certainly just the registrymodifications.xcu file which is corrupted - everything else should be OK and can be copied back

[wagtunes]

Okay, I have another question related to this. Whatever the reason is that my wife's computer is showing an ODT file as "file" when looking at the type, why, after she sent it to me via email and I downloaded it does it also show as "file" on my computer even though all my other ODT files show correctly?

It would seem to me that the file itself was not saved properly.

[Bill]

Any file which has no extension is shown as "file" in Windows. Manually add the file name extension by renaming the file and the file type will be shown correctly. Windows relies on the file name extension to determine the file type, icon, default program, etc.

[wagtunes]

Any file which has no extension is shown as "file" in Windows. Manually add the file name extension by renaming the file and the file type will be shown correctly. Windows relies on the file name extension to determine the file type, icon, default program, etc.

Okay, I did that and it worked. So, if my wife did the same thing on her laptop (until we actually fix what's causing the issue) her files will show correctly too?

[Bill]

Try it.

[John_Ha]

In summary:

Question: The file does not have a qualifier. Why not?

Answer: If the Automatic file name extension box in the Save as dialogue was not ticked, then Writer did what it was told to do, and did not add a file qualifier.

If the Automatic file name extension box in the Save as dialogue was ticked, then it is extremely unlikely to be because Writer did not add a qualifier, and much more likely to be because your wife renamed fred.odt to fred. She probably did this by mistake by right clicking the file at some time - Rename is one of the options offered.

If this solves the problem, please click the Edit button on your original post and add [Solved] in front of your subject.

[wagtunes]

In summary:

Question: The file does not have a qualifier. Why not?

Answer: If the Automatic file name extension box in the Save as dialogue was not ticked, then Writer did what it was told to do, and did not add a file qualifier.

If the Automatic file name extension box in the Save as dialogue was ticked, then it is extremely unlikely to be because Writer did not add a qualifier, and much more likely to be because your wife renamed fred.odt to fred. She probably did this by mistake by right clicking the file at some time - Rename is one of the options offered.

If this solves the problem, please click the Edit button on your original post and add [Solved] in front of your subject.

Sorry, no, this is not what happened. I was standing over her shoulder and watching as she did this for the second time.

These are the exact steps she took when I came over and gave her the initial "fix" suggested by this forum.

Step 1) I had her open another file that was correct. Meaning it was showing the qualifier.

Step 2) I had her click the "Save As" option from the file menu.

Step 3) I had her choose another name to save the files as in the filename box.

Step 4) I had her tick on the automatic file name extension box. It was in fact off.

Step 5) I had her click the "Save" button.

Step 6) We then went back to see if the file was saved with the qualifier. IT WAS NOT.

This was done with a perfectly good file that she had already created some time ago.

IT DOESN'T WORK!

This morning, I am going to have her go through the profile fix that was suggested earlier in this thread. If that works, I will then come back to this thread and mark it as solved.

[John_Ha]

Step 3) I had her choose another name to save the files as in the filename box.

I would have said it was because her Windows is not showing file qualifiers, and she selected a file, Fred, without a qualifier at Step 3, and therefore the file was somehow saved as Fred without a qualifier, even though Save with a qualifier was ticked. But, on testing, I see Writer does not offer files without qualifiers, so she cannot choose one, so it could not have been that. She must therefore have chosen a file like Fred.odt or Fred.doc or Fred.rtf or Fred.txt or Fred.xml etc, namely a file with one of the file types which Writer can save..

Check the the File > Recently opened files..., list. What name and qualifier does it say the file was saved as?

It should be listed there. If it is not, navigate to C:\Users\xxx\AppData\Roaming\OpenOffice\4\user\ and upload registrymodifications.xcu (before you reset her profile) to Dropbox or a file share site so I can analyse it - it stores old ones which have dropped of the "last 10 files" list. Let me know the name she saved it as where it did not have the qualifier.

[John_Ha]

I have just had a thought. These steps will reproduce it

Step 4) I had her tick on the automatic file name extension box. It was in fact off.

1 Yesterday, the Automatic file name extension box was OFF. You saved a file as Tom. It has no qualifier - it is just Tom.
2 Today, you go Save As ... You do not see Tom as it does not have a qualifier, so Writer does not display it.
3 You type Tom and save it. This saves Tom.odt

Now you look for "a file named Tom" and you first find the one you saved yesterday, which has no qualifier. You don't spot that is yesterday's file, nor do you see Tom.odt, which may even be in a different folder. You conclude "Today, Writer saved a file without giving it a qualifier even though I told it to use a qualifier."

Question 1: Start > type the name of the file without the qualifier (Tom) in the Search box > search the PC for it. Do you find Tom and Tom.odt?

[John_Ha]

Sorry, no, this is not what happened.

Trying to debug what she did will always be dificult but the previous post gives a rationale.

Please do the following steps and tell us what happens.

1 Start Writer
2 File > New > Text document. Now type a few words
3 File > Save As ....
4 You should see the sayve window.
5 Overtype Untitled.odt with fred. Do not type fred.odt or anything similar - just type fred and let Writer add the qualifier.
6 click Save.
7 Navigate to where you saved the file in 6. Question 1: What is it called?
8 Shut Writer. Start Writer > File > Recent documents ... This opens up a list of the last saved files and their qualifiers. Question 2: What does it say? You should see ...\fred.odt

Please answer Question 1 and Question 2 before anymore advice is given.

[wagtunes]

Sorry, no, this is not what happened.

Trying to debug what she did will always be dificult but the previous post gives a rationale.

Please do the following steps and tell us what happens.

1 Start Writer
2 File > New > Text document. Now type a few words
3 File > Save As ....
4 You should see the sayve window.
5 Overtype Untitled.odt with fred. Do not type fred.odt or anything similar - just type fred and let Writer add the qualifier.
6 click Save.
7 Navigate to where you saved the file in 6. Question 1: What is it called?
8 Shut Writer. Start Writer > File > Recent documents ... This opens up a list of the last saved files and their qualifiers. Question 2: What does it say? You should see ...\fred.odt

Please answer Question 1 and Question 2 before anymore advice is given.

Okay, we followed this procedure exactly. I don't understand why but it is working now. We haven't done any fixes or anything since yesterday. But fred shows up as fred.odt.

This is the most bizarre thing I have ever seen.

[John_Ha]

Read the post beginning I have just had a thought. These steps will reproduce it or click the link.

It is pretty frustrating for me as you were given those steps to try 13 posts ago but you apparently did not do so.

If this solves the problem, please click the Edit button on your original post and add [Solved] in front of your subject.

[wagtunes]

Read the post beginning I have just had a thought. These steps will reproduce it or click the link.

It is pretty frustrating for me as you were given those steps to try 13 posts ago but you apparently did not do so.

If this solves the problem, please click the Edit button on your original post and add [Solved] in front of your subject.

The reason this wasn't done yet was because my wife wasn't on her lap top. This morning was the first chance we had to try anything. It's not like myself who is on this computer day and night working. We get to things when we're able to get to them.

I will mark this thread solved.