Lost most pages in document

I’ve spent hours editing my thesis in a 110-pages document. I saved the document as .docx and made a couple of back-ups. Opening the document the following day it suddenly stops at page 6. Fortunately, I still have all the chapters I need to compile, but it’s an awful waste of time to do it all over - and then hope all the pages will be there tomorrow. Am I missing something? The 6-page docx-file is still 20MB (including a couple of figures)!

Using ver. 4.4.0.3 Writer, English. Windows 7, English

docx may be a bad choice and V4.4.0 is very fresh. Use odt with 4.3.6.

I think it’s even possible that 4.3.6 might open your 20MiB file and show the “lost” pages.
You may use the portable vesrsion from this location for trying if you shy back from installing a downgrade.

Are all your back-ups showing the same problem?

Why did you save in docx-format?

I would alway use only odt-format until the very end.

let me paste here two experienced based recommendations:

Backups:
Very often I see questions on how to recover lost files. Better than attempting to recover lost data is prepare against the loss of data. To avoid a loss of a file these are 3 recommendations:

1 - Check the following LibO options: Tools > options > Load/Save > General
---- Save Autorecovery every x mins (the shorter the value the small a possible loss; I use 3 min)
---- Automatically save document too ( I don’t use this, because I regard the autorecovery function as excellent.)
---- Always create a backup copy (download and read the free of charge LibO guide to understand how this works)

2 - When I work more than a day on a file, I create additional daily back ups. I use the format “filename_yymmdd.ext” and I keep at least 1 previous version.
In case the file is extremely important and I work long hours non-stop, I add the actual time behind the date.

3 - Backup the HDD of your computer to an external HDD. External HDD in the range of 2-4 TB cost mostly less than 150 EUR. I do this almost daily and even backup external HDD onto another one.

When it comes to this topic this expression comes to my mind: “Fail to prepare is prepare to fail!”

Format:
In respect to MSO formats, I stay always until the end in LibO native formats and only create a MSO copy of the last saved version and still try to avoid the x-formats. Additionally I made the experience that a pdf-file is in most of my cases sufficient. Many people send out files in MSO or LibO or other formats when a pdf-file is sufficient. Depending on the situation you can even secure a pdf-file against copying and changes. The pdf-export function in LibO works very well. (I am using 4.3) (In 4.4 the x-formats should be better.)

In the case of presentations I am also often asked to provide a ppt or pptx copy as a fall back solution is something happens with my PC or connection of my own PC is not possible, etc. For this I always carry a USB stick with a portable LibO version on it and my presentation. All I need is PC to plug the USB stick and can run on LIbO my own presentation.

To the very clear answers you have been given above, I would add that you may well need to adjust your memory options to cope with your large file and a number of images. On my Linux system it is found under TOOLS > OPTIONS > MEMORY. The standard settings are for more modest documents. There must be sufficient memory for all the images to be held in storage.
As I process documents of 250 pages or so, I notice that the .odt file with styles is usually considerably smaller than a formatted .doc original, again helping reduce the memory requirements. I set my memory cache to 250MB. Good luck… Peter

Thanks for the answers!

My problem is that 110 pages were reduced to 6 when I saved in .docx. I did so as I had to send it to a MSO-user for editing. I need a doc file, not pdf or odt. I now see I should have save in odt first, but had no idea that something like this could happen.

Unfortunately, 4.3.6 didn’t ‘recover’ my pages.

I’ll try to set my memory cache. But I guess I’ll either have to downgrade or just install MSO to be sure that I can save as doc. Thanks

I’ll bet your file had an html link on page six. If so, follow the instructions in this bug report to open the xml file structure, locate the link, and delete it. I had a similar problem years ago, amazing it still is not fixed.

I’ve also lost a number of pages after so-called recovery.
I’ve learned to cope with the atrocious, awkward design of the Libre apps, but bugs of this caliber persisting for years? Save several versions? Is this the stone age?
Is LibreOffice getting 'help" from Microsoft devs?
What is going on?
PS: My document was in RTF format. Is that too bleeding edge in 2017?

1 Like