🔒 Encrypted .ods file won't open – stuck loading forever, possibly corrupted (help needed)

Georgek777 · July 21, 2025, 5:27am

Hello everyone,

I really need help. I’ve been working on a LibreOffice Calc spreadsheet for several months and saved it as a password-protected .ods file on a USB flash drive.

Recently, when I try to open the file, it prompts me for the password (which I know is correct), but after entering it, the file never opens — it just keeps loading indefinitely. It doesn’t crash or throw an error, it just hangs.

After some research, I suspect the file may be corrupted. However, the file size appears unchanged, so I’m hoping that the content might still be recoverable.

Here’s what I’ve tried so far:

Opened it in LibreOffice Safe Mode → same result (just loads forever)
Tried OpenOffice → it says the file is corrupted and needs repair, then fails to repair it
Tried renaming the .ods file to .zip → but since it’s encrypted, I can’t access content.xml
Used a tool like Kernel for Calc (evaluation version) → no success or useful results
Tried uploading to Google Sheets or Excel → not supported due to password protection

At this point I don’t know what else to try. I don’t want to give up on this file — it represents months of work and the password is definitely correct.

Questions:

Is there any known method to recover or repair password-protected .ods files that won’t open due to corruption?
Can the community or any advanced user look at the structure of the file to confirm if it’s salvageable?
Are there reliable tools or services (even paid) that are known to work with this kind of issue?

Any advice or guidance would be deeply appreciated.

mikekaganski · July 21, 2025, 6:16am

I can try to look into it – only if you trust me (a random person offering you help on Internet), and send me the file together with the password. It is a serious risk on your side, trusting someone like that; but there is no way to decrypt the file without password (no we don’t create backdoors in LibreOffice encryption), and no way to try to extract XMLs without decrypting.

My personal suspicion is, that there is no corruption, just some bug in LibreOffice causing a hang; and maybe waiting long enough (who knows how long … hours?) could result in opening - or not. OOo (or AOO) reporting a corruption is likely a red herring caused by our new encryption scheme introduced recently, which is naturally not supported by that. By the way, you could try the versions between 24.2 and 25.8, to check if any of these (all of which do support the new encryption) can open it OK. My help would possibly be in extracting XMLs possible after entering the password, using debugger that then allows to get the decrypted data streams.

mariosv · July 21, 2025, 10:34pm

Perhaps the corruption occurred when saving to the USB, if the writing did not complete correctly.

Try if there is a copy of the file in the backup folder if it is active. (Menu>Tools>Options>LibreOffice>Paths - Backup)

sokol92 · July 22, 2025, 11:59am

If your operating system is MS Windows, you can try to search deleted files.

Georgek777 · July 22, 2025, 3:38pm

Hi everyone,

Just wanted to share an important update in case it helps someone else in a similar situation.

After trying everything I could think of, testing LibreOffice versions from 24.2 through 25.8 on my PC, using Safe Mode, OpenOffice, renaming the file, trying recovery tools, and more, I still couldn’t get my encrypted .ods file to open on desktop. It always hangs after entering the password.

But surprisingly, I discovered that LibreOffice Calc on Android was able to open the file in about 10 seconds, even though it’s a very large file (over 400 MB). It opens normally, and I can view the data.

Unfortunately, there’s a catch:

Any attempt to save or edit the file on Android causes the app to crash.
I tried to open it as “view only” on the desktop, but no luck, it still freezes.

From what I could see, the file appears structurally corrupted, row/column widths become inconsistent the more you scroll down, which may be the result of a failed save on the USB drive. This likely explains why desktop versions can’t handle it.

Despite that, I managed to copy and paste most of the data into a text file and am now in the process of rebuilding the spreadsheet manually. Since the file is so big, not all content could be copied at once, so I’m manually transcribing the rest by viewing it on Android and entering it on my computer.

If you’re in a similar situation:

Try opening the file in LibreOffice Android.
Use it only for viewing.
Avoid editing or saving, as that crashes the app.
Copy and back up what you can, even if it takes some manual effort.

I’m still hoping someone finds a better fix, but this workaround at least saved my data. If anyone knows of a desktop viewer app that can open large .ods files in a read-only mode without triggering edit commands, that would be amazing.

Thanks again to everyone who responded and offered suggestions. Hope this info helps someone out there!