[Solved] Images disappear

[antsco]

Hi,
every now and then I open a document made with Impress and the images that had initially been inserted aren't there any longer or at least they do not display. The images are inserted as images not as links to images, so I understand that they are part of the document.
Does anyone know why this happens? Have others had a similar experience and how have they sorted that out?
Best regards
OpenOffice 4.1.14 0n Windows 10

[Hagar Delest]

Do you save in native ODF (.odp)?
Does the file size change according to the pic size?
What happens when you open the file again? Is there a placeholder or just nothing?

[antsco]

Hi,
I have saved both in .odp and .ppt
As for the second question: I can't say (also the document has many images)
When I open the file again there is no placeholder, although in other occasions I have found the placeholder
I can see that the .ppt version is almost half as big as the .odp version

[MrProgrammer]

every now and then I open a document made with Impress and the images that had initially been inserted aren't there any longer or at least they do not display.

Issue 118725 - Pictures replaced by "read error" message and dropped

This issue is for Writer, but it might affect Impress as well.

[RoryOF]

LibreOffice spent 44K euro to fix this problem. It may be best to change to LibreOffice. There are still very occasional reports of image loss in Impress, but such losses may be caused by user error.

[antsco]

I just installed libre office and opened the affected document with it but the lost images continue to be lost there as well.
However I guess you guys refer to starting a document form scratch with LO, right?

[RoryOF]

Yes - the file containing the lost images is damaged; I cannot recollect that there was any way discover to restore it.

[antsco]

Hi all, and thanks for your inputs. So what I gather is that (also by reading some of the references)
1) the images are lost, no matter whether one opens the file with AOO or LO etc.
2) the safe way to include/insert images is by actually using the "INSERT IMAGE" function.
3) Apparently, even doing as in 2, AOO can still loose some images and that LO is better at preventing this from happening

[RoryOF]

From memory, often the images are stored internally in the OO .odt/.odp etc file, but the links to them are lost. As the image names have been changed to internal naming in the file it is simpler to reinsert the images from the source, whether by actual insertion or by Link.

Aside: it is my suspicion that the corruption (loss of images) occurs when the auto-recovery save kicks in, and the user continues typing. This is only a suspicion - if I were skilled in programming C++ and using Windows, I might investigate this path, thinking it could be caused by some form of unmasked interrupt (I was a Z80 programmer).

Using Linux (Xubuntu), and Saving to a NAS remote device, with auto-recovery and auto-backup disabled (for reasons to do with rights on the NAS device) I have not lost images in years, but do Save my files regularly, using timed/dated backup extension.

NOTE: I _DO NOT_ suggest that the above method of disabling auto-recovery and auto-backup and Saving to a NAS device will give picture security for anyone, merely that it appears to work for me. I have been informed that it does not work on Windows.

[antsco]

From memory, often the images are stored internally in the OO .odt/.odp etc file, but the links to them are lost. As the image names have been changed to internal naming in the file it is simpler to reinsert the images from the source, whether by actual insertion or by Link.

So does this mean that if I re-insert all the lost images, the document will double (sort of) it's size? Ideally there should be a way of getting rid of all the images that are unreachable (apart from creating a new document from scratch and trasnferring all the text there)

[MrProgrammer]

So does this mean that if I re-insert all the lost images, the document will double (sort of) it's size?

Open your ODP document with ZIP and check. If you are not familiar with using ZIP and related tools, attach your presentation (remove confidential information then use Post Reply, not Quick Reply so we can take a look. I will not help further unless you attach an ODP document. Explain where an image is missing in your presentation: slide X, then after text Y, or at the top.

[RoryOF]

So does this mean that if I re-insert all the lost images, the document will double (sort of) it's size? Ideally there should be a way of getting rid of all the images that are unreachable (apart from creating a new document from scratch and trasnferring all the text there)

I can't say. Perhaps the new images may overlay the old in the internal store of the file, but I really don't know. You could make a copy of the damaged file, open it with an archive manager, then delete the contents of the internal Pictures folder, then close the zip archive, and using this updated "damaged" file, insert afresh your pictures. But don't try this if you are in any doubt about how to do it.