How do I recover my Document after OpenOffice.org crashes?

[sherlyXD]

Open Office crashed on me but it said that it saved my work after it sent me the "send report" thing.
I even saw it with the saving process bar.

So how do i recover it? i REALLY need this back today.

I have Open office 3.0 andit was a document that I didnt save yet.

[TheGurkha]

Hi and welcome to the forums.

If you hadn't saved yet, there is a chance that OOo made an automatic backup, which will be in the backup folder (if it did in fact make one).

See this thread: [Tutorial] The OOo user profile.

There is more chance of recovery if you were working in .odt not .doc, as .odt. It is always safer to work in the native OOo formats (.odt and .ods etc) and then use Save As to save a copy in .doc or .xls format if you need to distribute it in MS Office formats. But always then go back to the native OOo version to continue working. If the people you are sending to do not need to edit the files then it is best to send them a PDF as then no matter what office suite they use it will be possible for them to read and print the files.

Good luck.

Let us know what happens.

[sherlyXD]

I'm sorry. I have no idea what you are talking about and if i can still retrieve my report.

I went to tools>options>paths...soi what do I do after that?
if u kno.

and yes, it was saved in .odt

[TheGurkha]

The thread I linked to tells you where the user profile is located on your PC. Within that folder (not within the OOo settings) is a backup folder. you need to browse to that and see if there is a document in there with the sane name as the one you were working on, but with a different extension. If there is copy it somewhere else and rename it to .odt. If you hadn't saved even once though, the chances are slim.

What happened to the original file? What happens when you try to open that?

[Airethilien]

Could you tell me if there is any solution after accidently skipped the offered autrecovery??
My backup folder is empty

[Hagar Delest]

None I fear because when you cancel it, OOo cleans the related temporary files.

[Airethilien]

feared as much... thanks anyhow

[cavenia]

Ok, so... I'm working on my thesis and two nights in a row (at approximately 6 am, which makes me go on a crisis each time) the program crashes and everything that I typed since I opened the document at around 11 pm... dissapears. When it crashes, it offers me to save everything, and I accept, and then it offers to recover, and I accept, but it recovers up to the original document with which I started. And I'm freaking out. The first night, fine, bad luck. But two nights in a row!? I'm back to nothing after two whole nights of staying up. Please help me. I'm going crazy. I followed the advice here, but there isn't anything in my backup folder.
What do I do? And why is it doing this to me?

[Hagar Delest]

Do you hit Ctrl+S often? Plus make backups yourself giving them different names.

[cavenia]

I saved it often, plus it was supposedly autosaving. Since the same thing happened to me twice in a row (Wednesday night and Thursday night), I am starting to wonder if I don't have some sort of virus.

I am getting used to idea that I lost my work, but any tips on avoiding this from happening again? I dowloaded a keystroke tracker just in case, and I will follow the advice to have backups of my work... but maybe I should do something else? I am dowloading the newer version of OpenOffice too.

[Hagar Delest]

You can also try to reset your OOo user profile. But during the welcome process, don't transfer your personal data (if you had 2.x), former configuration files might corrupt the new profile. It will clear any remnants that could cause trouble if it comes from OOo.

Note that the autosaving feature saves only for recovery purpose, it means that it doesn't update your real file, only a manual save does it (Ctrl+S or click the floppy icon in toolbar).

[dependentorigination]

Somebody needs to post SOLVED!! on this bad boy. I'm a first year grad student who has been loving Open Office for about 3 years now. Today, Open Office crashed after 6 hours of me working (and not saving) on an assignment that is due tomorrow. I didn't have the time to redo 6 hours of work. So on to the internet I go, search "recover file after open office crash" pulls me to this link, follow simple directions, recover file and hours of work saved. Brilliant, great work!!! Thanks for your help.

[ozlady]

As a quick fix, you can try using OpenOffice portable and running of a flash drive (aka thumb drive or memory stick)??

[RoryOF]

I'm a first year grad student who has been loving Open Office for about 3 years now. Today, Open Office crashed after 6 hours of me working (and not saving) on an assignment that is due tomorrow. I didn't have the time to redo 6 hours of work.

You should learn to press Ctrl S anytime you pause in almost every program you use for work. Six hours without saving? No matter what program you are using, you should Save, Save, SAVE!

[szkati]

Hi!
I have the same problem, I 'm sure that I have saved my work yesterday each 15 minutes and I have closed it properly. But it's lost. In my backup there is only 3 or more months old documents. I didn't had checked the Tools/option/Load and save/general/Always create a backup copy . I did it now, and I hope it will help me. I had several dokuments open (more than 5), none of them has the changes. I have ubuntu.

[Hagar Delest]

Personally, I don't really trust the Ubuntu version of OOo, neither the new EXT4 file format. But even the cache delay should not apply if you save each 15 min.

[MargaretRobinson]

I also had a crash and my document seems to be gone.

None of the instructions given here are working. My OpenOffice tools menu doesn't have a selection called "options." My mac doesn't have a library folder under my username. Any suggestions?

[lgusaas]

My OpenOffice tools menu doesn't have a selection called "options."

On Macs it it OpenOffice.org/Preferences

My mac doesn't have a library folder under my username.

Open Finder. Hold option while clicking the Go menu in the Finder to see the Library item in the menu

[loubrock92]

If you hadn't saved yet, there is a chance that OOo made an automatic backup, which will be in the backup folder (if it did in fact make one).

See this thread: [Tutorial] The OOo user profile.

There is more chance of recovery if you were working in .odt not .doc, as .odt. It is always safer to work in the native OOo formats (.odt and .ods etc) and then use Save As to save a copy in .doc or .xls format if you need to distribute it in MS Office formats. But always then go back to the native OOo version to continue working. If the people you are sending to do not need to edit the files then it is best to send them a PDF as then no matter what office suite they use it will be possible for them to read and print the files.

THANK YOU SO MUCH I WANT TO KISS YOU ON THE FACE!!!!!

I managed to get a file back after accidentally cancelling the recovery option a few days previously...
For windows 8, click on view at the top of windows explorer- show/hide drop down- make sure hidden items is ticked
Then go through the options as the tutorial tells you and in the user folder click on 'backup'

Hopefully everyone else is as fortunate as me, if not do what I did and do some internet shopping to make yourself feel better before starting again!

[Dena]

Hello together,

I have lost my .doc document even though I saved it every few minutes.
When I ran the recovery in OpenOffice I got an error message with option to save the file, but the file that was saved was an older version.
I also looked in the backup folder and couldn't find it.

If someone could help, I would really appreciate it.

Thank you in advance.

[Hagar Delest]

.doc format is binary. If no recovery, then the file is lost. That's why it's important to work in native ODF (.odt).
.doc is part of the vendor lock-in policy from MS.

[Xonatron]

This just happened to me too.

I was working on a slideshow document all day. I was saving it (CTRL-S) and then I accidentally pasted a slide into another slide (I thought I was pasting text but had copied a slide just before and forgot). It pasted the slide into the other slide and then crashed.

I opened up the document and it showed two recovery documents, so I clicked to start recovery and it was a document that contained all my work except the last 5 minutes. So I closed it to try the other document. I didn't save this document -- THINKING IT WAS ALREADY SAVED. I open up my document again, expecting to see the recovery choices again. And they were gone. As was my work from all day. Everything is gone.

I checked the backup folder and it is empty. HOW FRUSTRATING. I have little patience for lost data.

How can I recover my work now?

[Xonatron]

More info: I tried to locate the backup files via file recovery software and was unable to. I searched the backup folder, the current folder, and even the entire computer. It appears my work is lost for good. What a bad bug, and note that the recovery actually worked for me but without me saving it on the spot, it lost the recovery.

[rikard88]

I put the PC to sleep (just logged off without shutting down), to finish that book tonight (yes it was about to be finished). When I tried to re-login, the Open Office asked to register and to put my initials (strangely). I skept and proceeded, then the file got crashed and since then the OO cannot open it, with the message "red error, your file is corrupted because of manipulation, some data were lost during the transaction..." so it seems that I was hacked again, and there was a trend to steal the manuscript.

I checked online Apache Open Office 4.1.3. forums for similar situations and all are saying that there is nothing could be done if the file cannot be located in temp folder (in my case it has no remnant in temp folder).

But I do see the unopened file in its full capacity (5,073 KB) and also, when I try to open it with wordpad it brings some content with weird characters (so the interior is not lost). Having that said, I still hope that the conventional MS Office (MS word) may open that file.

[RoryOF]

A soon as may be read and apply the methos suggested in this tutorial
[Tutorial] How to find and un-delete Writer temporary files

Do not expect that undamaged or perhaps any data is in the existing file; experience shows that often the text data is missing.