How do I retrieve an unsaved document that was lost when the computer restarted and failed to recover it upon start up?

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#1

Hi! I have Ubuntu 18.04 and lost an unsaved document when the software updater restarted the computer. Upon restart, the status of the recovered documents sad ‘Recovery failed’. I tried to follow the directions on an earlier post, Recovery of unsaved documents - #2 by mariosv, whch said:

I saw that the question is closed but I would like to document the way I just solved in my computer. I went through the the same path proposed (Menu/Tools/Options/LibreOffice/Paths) but I checked the path for the backups (in my case .config/libreoffice/4/user/backup). So what I did was to go to that folder (via terminal) and my doc was there. Anyway, I don’t know if I could add to a closed question, but this steps just saved me. best regards

And I did find the path, but the documents were not there. So I read further, and this is where I got lost:

This really works! Saved me from losing a lost document…The backup path was shown in the ‘Paths’ section under Tools>Options> LIbreoffice> Paths. My AppData folder was’nt there, but found it in View> Hidden since it was a hidden file. Wonder why LibreOffice didn’t itself tell me it had saved this file in backup when by PC crashed last time…anyway, this has saved me!

Is there anyone who can give detailed instructions for a newbie?
Thank you!

#2

Your question and your “explanation” are not easy to understand. So edit it (use the edit link under it) to explain all that. In particular, what is “view>hidden”?

one of your previous posts

Which one ? There 41k questions on this site, no one will dig in to try to identify it. If you read it, put a link to it in your edit (or at least copy its URL from the address bar in your browser).

Mention your OS. Solutions for lost file problems heavily depend on system brand.

Read these guidelines and try to ask a good question leading contributors into the right track.

#3

My AppData directory is Windows stuff, you’re under Ubuntu. View>Hidden is also a command in the file navigator (desktop) to show hidden files and directories.

“Recovery failed” means Writer found recovery data and tried to use it but the data was probably damaged.

In a terminal, run command ls ~/.config/libreoffice/4/user/backup/ and see if something “interesting” is there.

#4

Thank you for your reply. I did run the command and the files I am looking for are not there. Is there another place that my computer may have stored them or a way to search all hidden .odt documents?

#5

.odt files are not hidden by themselves. The containing directory may be.

The directory locations known to LO are found in Tools>Options, LibreOffice>Paths but I doubt you will discover other useful directories.

The problem is your computer rebooted while your document was not saved. If recovery data is damaged (this was an unexpected reboot with running applications likely killed instead of graceful termination), nothing can be done. Eventually, try a file search utility for *.odt filename if the utility supports wildcards.

#6

how would I try a file search for that? I tried ls ~/.odt and nothing came up and it said cannot access '/home/[myname]/.odt’: No such file or directory.

#7

ls ~/.odt is a terminal command and I bet one cent you never ever imagine creating such a hidden file.

I was suggesting to use a GUI (graphical interface) file search utility. Unfortunately, I don’t use Ubuntu and even less GNOME to give you the utility name. There’s surely one.

#8

Thank you. It just said no file or directory.

#9

Then the file was never saved. No hope to recover it.

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