When I tried to open a file this message appears - .odt does not exist I can see the first page of the document. This was for a free online teaching course, if I can not recover it, I do not have the time to rewrite the course.
No one has addressed this issue, at least in any meaningful way for ordinary users (not geeks) to understand. The first page of the document is clearly visible, but when you click on it a message window pops up with an okay button, “cannot be opened because … .odt does not exist”. Regardless of what operating system a user has or PC or Mac, this needs to be addressed please.
For starters, please reedit your question and add your OS and version, and your LO version.
Thank you, however I doubt my operating system is the same as the person with the first post. Given that, I’m running OS X 10.11.6 (on an upgraded 2009 iMac). My LibreOffice is v. 5.3.6.1. Neither is the latest, but I don’t think are that antique and OS X upgrades can be hair-raising.
Opening LibreOffice recently to search for a Write document were a series of smaller representations of the first page of the document–something is there, but when I click on it I received the above pop-up.
Sorry to truncate, but the comment section has a character limit. Continuing the above, I can say that one document that I use regularly always opens automatically to my screen and when presented in the documents will open and not give me the message. It is on the Desktop all the time, open or closed.
It might be helpful if I elaborate on the string of characters in the “xyz.odt does not exist”. Here’s an example: “Users/john/Desktop/Untitled 1.odt does not exist” (saved but not on Desktop).
One last item. I noted on a website that someone’s solution for this is to un-install the current older version of LibreOffice and then install the latest newer version. This seemed scary to me since the word “un-install” was there rather than “upgrade”. If I un-install, even for a moment, there wouldn’t be any LibreOffice and then it seems to me all my documents (and work) would disappear with the un-install and not be recoverable. Is that safe and would it really solve this issue?
@JohnRJ, A very smart friend taught me years ago how important updating and upgrading are. One can spend a tremendous amount of time fighting old issues in vein. If you have an old VW bus, you still have an old VW bus, and it get harder and harder to keep it running. Fewer and fewer people can or want to help you as your system gets older. Much easier to keep up with things, so a colleague can more easily test things out. Better overall I think to spend the time to update and upgrade.
So is this the older LibreOffice 5.3.6.1 the cause of issue, and is it the cure? I don’t mind “upgrading” to, it looks like LibreOffice 6.0.2, however as a layman I was leery of the only solution I’ve seen; “un-install” the older version and then download fresh the the newest version. Perhaps I’m naive, but the terms do not seem like the same. If I un-install then what happens to all my documents whether they open or don’t “exist”? I’m used to viewing un-install as delete–everything’s gone.
I have a similar problem.
Every time I try to open a document directly from an email, LibreOffice 7.3.1.3 responds “/tmp/[filename] does not exist.”
I can locate the document in the /tmp directory using my file manager. But when I try to open it in LibreOffice, LibreOffice tells me that the document “does not exist.”
I am running Ubuntu 20.04, and using Thunderbird 91.5.0 for email.
It is permissions probably,
Further to my previous comment, I do not have a general permissions problem. PDF and PNG files open as expected. If I change my TMP folder, how will that affect programs other than LibreOffice?
Oh well, then just save the file to your normal documents folder and open it from there.
Please try to find out which exact command is used by the mailer to launch LibreOffice in that case (there should be a system tool on your OS to get that from the running process while the error dialog is shown). This might be important here; and also you might need to file a bug report.
Thanks, Mike
I opened a terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and installed HTOP: Sudo apt install htop
I attach a screenshot of the terminal, as displayed while the error message was displayed on the screen.
If that is not enough information to diagnose the source of the problem,. can you a system tool that might be adequate?
I can’t. I’m a Windows user, so can’t advise on Linux tools, but I know that Linux must have tools that are able to tell the command line.
The screenshot doesn’t show anything useful. No full message. No trace of libreoffice/soffice process in the list. Nothing that could help.
It may still be a sort of permissions issue, not directly connected to file system permissions but rather to file locking.
Typically, software using the tmp storage will clean up when they terminate. This means that they may keep the file handle on temporary files active. LO will request write access, while png/pdf files are typically opened in a viewer, requiring only read access. Simultaneous write access is generally avoided…
A shot in the dark, I know.
Did you try saving the file to downloads or documents folder? Any difference in behavior?
Save the attachment first to your home-folder. Pdf/png etc. is usually shown by internal routines in Thunderbird. Other attachments shold be saved first.
The issue is that you see a picture of the first page of the document on your “recent files” panel of Start Center. The image (“screenshot”/“thumbnail”) was made when you opened the file last time, and the thumbnail image is stored in LibreOffice settings. They are shown independently of whether the file itself is available or not.
Now in a scenario when the file itself was for some reason lost - it could have been removed; or on a portable storage that is disconnected - well, in this case, when you click the preview image, only then LibreOffice tries to actually access the file at the same address it opened it last time. And when it doesn’t find the file there, it naturally informs you about that. The file does not exist at the place you used to open it - that’s it; and there’s nothing LibreOffice can do. Only you can (if you can).
The reason for the absent file sometimes can be a user opening files from email attachments or directly from Web. Applications allowing you to open files that way often do that by first copying the document to their own temporary storage, then launching an associated application to handle the file, then cleaning up and removing the document from temporary store. LibreOffice has no idea if the place was temporary or not (except for some special cases) - so it’s a user’s responsibility to Save As their document to safe places. Nothing here that “needs to be addressed please” by LibreOffice. Sorry.
I’m sorry I didn’t respond until now, life intervened. Today when I logged back in I was reacquainted with the same dilemma I had back then that was not answered. Please forgive me if I seem a a little flippant but I think I may have an insight as the why the concern was never answered over many Google searches.
Open source software help forum answers always assumes too much “geek” sophistication on the part of the users, who have difficulty with free programs. This is true of open source in general, not just LibreOffice. I wonder if this tendency springs from the fact that many in the open source world don’t even use the operating systems we plebeians do: Microsoft Windows or Apple OS; or know them so thoroughly up and down backward and forward that arcane and erudite assumptions are just made of us fledgling’s abilities to decipher what’s being said.
More times than you can count, jargon and delving into the inner computer workings are used in answers that assume the simplest mannerisms of devise operation to the answer-er are beyond our understanding, or level of courage, or matters with which we can (or should) have the time for. Note: that we have the time for. Perhaps we freeloaders should stay with paying through the nose to have our naive hands held if there is a problem, but I don’t think that is the aim of open source; a lot of us freeloaders are starving cornered rats with a mean streak.
Searching again today through Google entries on the original question, I found my answer, and it was garbled but very quick, in the same question being asked on Jan. 5, 2021, two years later. The solution was simple; go the your Apple Finder screen, chose File, and Find. Type in the “does not exist” information starting with the /, and voila the non-existent document pops up like nobody’s business, every one of them, no arcane jargon like “file manager” that might mean something to PC owners. Now I know what to do every time “does not exist” happens. I’m sure that an equally straight- forward method is available for Microsoft, who allows users more intrusion into computer workings than Apple does.
How is using a computer and knowing how to use a file manager any different from driving an automobile and knowing the difference between the accelerator and the brake? There is nothing arcane, jargonish, geeky, or elitist about such knowledge. In fact such knowledge is absolutely necessary for effective and safe usage.
I believe that a complete answer to the original question is contained in the contribution by @mikekaganski, shown below.