Document recovery help (Writer)

szwanger · July 16, 2024, 9:42pm

I was working on several Writer documents when Libre Office froze (as it does very occasionally), so I force-quit and relaunched.

All the documents are ok except for one, which was very large. When I try to open it, I get the message “filename is corrupt and therefore cannot be opened. Should Libre Office repair the file?” If I click yes, I get the message “filename cannot be repaired and therefore cannot be opened.”

The backup folder is completely empty, and unfortunately I did not have “Always create backup copy” turned on.

Any suggestions for how I can recover this file, or find a previous version of it?

Ash733 · July 17, 2024, 3:45am

Please go to Help/About in LibreOffice and paste here the details from the button next to “version information”. How you could possibly recover a file will depend on operating system and possibly LibreOffice version.

But I suspect if LibreOffice can’t recover it, it’s probably gone. Restore the latest copy from backup.

szwanger · July 17, 2024, 11:08am

Version: 7.6.1.2 (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: f5defcebd022c5bc36bbb79be232cb6926d8f674
CPU threads: 8; OS: Windows 10.0 Build 19045; UI render: Skia/Raster; VCL: win
Locale: en-US (en_US); UI: en-US
Calc: threaded

fpy · July 17, 2024, 1:06pm

you can try to fix your files :

szwanger · July 17, 2024, 2:02pm

I appreciate the reply, but I didn’t see anything at the first link about fixing files, and the second link as far as I can tell applies only to 7z archives. Is there anything that’s more specific that you can point me to?

fpy · July 17, 2024, 2:08pm

first link clarifies that your doc (.odt?) actually is a zip archive.

(if it contains no personal data, you may upload it here)

szwanger · July 17, 2024, 2:27pm

Ah, I see; actually it is a .doc file (MS Word).

fpy · July 17, 2024, 2:35pm

or .docx ? (which is also a zip)

szwanger · July 17, 2024, 4:18pm

Sadly, it is not a .docx.

ajlittoz · July 17, 2024, 4:27pm

.doc is a binary file. Consequently, if it is corrupted there is very low hope to repair it. .docx and .odt are XML files stored in a zip container. If the zip structure is intact it is easier to salvage bits.

For the future, work in native format. This rule is valid for any application. If you have a strong external constraint on format, convert only at end of your editing job but always save your original document in native format. When you receive comments and changes, merge them in the original file. Don’t do it from the file in external format.