Format Error for document after hardware problem

[MorbidWanderer5]

Hello. I am here reaching out to see if someone can help me fix a format error in one of my files. When I open it, it reads "Format Error discovered in the file in sub-document content.xml at 2, 69958(row, col).

I looked in here before and found a tutorial, but some of the details don't match what I have and I just don't know how to go about fixing it myself all the way. Is there anyone who can help me somehow?

Edit: Changed subject, was Need Help With A Format Error  Make your post understandable by others  -- MrProgrammer, forum moderator

[RoryOF]

Please upload your original damaged file to the Forum; or if too large, to a filesharing site and post a link to it.

[MorbidWanderer5]

Please upload your original damaged file to the Forum; or if too large, to a filesharing site and post a link to it.

https://mega.nz/file/zc0DyJTK#59bdi_7dq ... T4rvCwn2vs

The file was too big to attach, so here is the link for you to access it. I appreciate you taking the time to help me out.

[RoryOF]

My tools are showing internal component content.xml as being uninflatable. This is a plain text file, so it is presumably severely damaged. Perhaps some other Forum volunteer, using different tools, will have more success.

[JeJe]

You could try some other xml error fix sources. A quick search gives plenty

https://www.easeus.com/file-recovery/fr ... -file.html
https://alberthoitingh.com/2016/09/05/r ... -document/

@RoryOF
Better unzip programs can extract it, Winzip on Windows, which is available as a trial. Don't know what you have on Linux. The file text is still there (Edit: well at least a lot of it) but appears to be an error in the xml.

[RoryOF]

in Xubuntu linux the archive manager is engrampa. The error was not one I have seen in 15 years of using linux.

I am currently working on a talk to be delivered shortly, and had no time to follow up the problem.

[MorbidWanderer5]

First of all, thank you taking the time again. I'm in no hurry. If you think you can fix it, then give it a go. I'll be thankful either way. No need to hurry yourself.

[JeJe]

Don't know anything about repairing xml files myself. Presumably - you've opened it in Notepad or something similar and seen how much of the document is there.. even if you can't repair the file with some find and replaces you can recover some of the text, if not the document itself.

[FJCC]

Here is the content.xml that I could extract. At the location of the error, there begin to be encoding errors. The text before that could be recovered. I doubt anything can be done with the rest.

[RoryOF]

I tried a number of different archive utilities; one eventually worked somewhat. content.xml, which holds the text is truncated at 64K. I attach it, but if you have a backup that would be better to use.

[cwolan]

Out of curiosity I used ODF repair tool.
[Tutorial] ODF repair tool

Due to errors in the file the recovery is partial - cf. the attached file.

I hope someone does it better.
⠀

PartlyRecovery.odt

(43.58 KiB) Downloaded 100 times

[MrProgrammer]

My unzip tool (supplied by MacOS) reported that content.xml was damaged; it's been truncated:

  inflating: content.xml             
  error:  invalid compressed data to inflate

Inspecting the file, only the first portion of the document is present. I have no way to tell how much was lost. I added a line at the end of content.xml to supply four closing tags:

endtags='></text:p></office:text></office:body></office:document-content>'
old='Damaged File by MorbidWanderer5.odt'
new='202310131545.odt'
cd ~/Downloads
unzip "$old" content.xml
echo "$endtags" >>content.xml
cp "$old" "$new"
zip -m "$new" content.xml

Edit: Oops. endtags should not have started with >: endtags='</text:p></office:text></office:body></office:document-content>'

This is all of the recoverable data I could get from your file (14 pages). Consider implementing a backup strategy on your system to reduce the pain of data loss.

202310131549.odt

(42.61 KiB) Downloaded 88 times

If this solved your problem please go to your first post use the Edit ☐ button and add [Solved] to the start of the Subject field. Select the green checkmark icon at the same time.

[JeJe]

@MrProgrammer

FJCC's contentRecovered.xml file is the same as what I extracted - and it contains a bit more recoverable information beyond what's in your document. (101kb total)

[MorbidWanderer5]

Wow. I didn't know it was that heavily damaged. If it helps, I can what lead to this. My computer had a heavy-hitting error that made it unable to start up the OS (Windows 10.) I accessed the command prompt to access the notepad and access miles from there. I successfully copied my files to a hard drive from there, then I had to wipe the disk clean before re-install the OS.

Every other file I have is working perfectly with no issues. This is the only one I found that got damaged.

If it's no problem, I'll leave the file up in case anyone manages to find a way to recover as much as possible, any more is recoverable. And, I'll definitely make to back-up more often.

[LastUnicorn]

For your new backup routines you might want to consider using the TimeStamp Backup extension as an additional backup tool. You can find basic information on the extension here, TimeStamp Backup, but do not download from that location as it isn't the latest version. You can download the latest version here: TimeStamp Backup (Latest Version).

As you're recreating your system anew you might want to think about replacing your OpenOffice with LibreOffice. There are several good reasons for doing so, some of which are mentioned here: [Tutorial] Considering a Switch from OpenOffice to LibreOffice? Some Useful Information