Can't type or open previously working documents

Nyxaion · May 31, 2023, 2:42pm

Hello,

Someone restarted my computer and LibreOffice updated. Since then I haven’t been able to type in Writer or even just read documents that used to work (I tried five and they are just empty, despite their file weight being normal). I checked if the text was written in orange (my background is orange), it’s not. I checked the transparency everywhere I could, it’s off. I tried to change the font, it just changes back to Liberation Serif without writing anything. I tried repairing the install for 7.5.3.2 and it didn’t help. What else can I do? Does anyone else have this problem?

Thanks for reading.

ajlittoz · May 31, 2023, 3:01pm

Reopen your question (don’t use a comment) and add “technical” details: OS name, save format. What kind of update happened? OS? Application software? Note that LO never updates by itself. Perhaps you had a pending update (already downloaded) but unable to activate because LO was running.

Give maximal information because we can’t see what you’re doing, even less what you have done and have no access to your computer (fortunately).

Eventually attach a small non-confidential document so that we can see if it opens on our computers.

mariosv · May 31, 2023, 8:44pm

Please test with a clean profile, Menu/Help/Restart in Safe Mode.

EarnestAl · June 1, 2023, 7:11am

I’m guessing you are on Windows, just because of the comment about repairing the installation.

Windows cannot run for long periods without restarting, it will restart by itself if it isn’t done manually. If Windows hasn’t been restarted for a while, it might need a second Restart to finish updating itself; that might be enough for LibreOffice to work. If not try mariosv suggestion.

LibreOffice does not update itself on Windows. Therefore some other program has updated LibreOffice. There are programs that exist to update all your other programs and sometimes they are part of an anti virus installation.

If you have anti virus software it might be blocking programs not in its database. You might need to add the new version of LibreOffice to its allowed list of programs.

Wanderer · June 1, 2023, 7:29am

First: Backup your files.
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To check, if contents are available: Copy one of your files and rename by appending .zip after the original extension.
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Open the zip-Archive (try from context menu) and search for a content.xml file inside. Load this .xml-file in a Text-editor or with firefox and check if your content is available there. XML is not really easy to read on first sight, but you should manage to identify your Text.
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If data/text is still available the next step would be to repair your installation. For Windows an additional portable Installation may be an option to heve a working system without finding the original error first.

igorpi · October 22, 2023, 5:26pm

I have several installations of LibreOffice x64 version in Windows. Update from 7.4.1 to 7.5.6 cause the same situation as in question. Repairing or updateing to 7.6.2 didn’t solve the problem. Users can’t type in new or open any previously working documents in Writer. Some opened, but the text was missing and table seemed corrupted. Maybe the same was in all Office documents, I didn’t test.

In searching what happened and finding solution, I deleted LibreOffice user profile, but this didn’t help. After restarting computer (full restart thought) it all seems back like normal, document did open and typing was possible again. No corrupted documents, but we didn’t saved them in the first place after updating.

It seem that just restarting computer did the trick after opening documents for the first time after updating and no user profile delete was necessary.

EarnestAl · October 22, 2023, 7:43pm

There is normally a warning that Explorer needs to be closed during installation otherwise a restart is required.

Personally, I always restart Windows after installing anything on the grounds that Windows over estimates its ability to carry on working properly after even a small change.