Unclosed recovery list

Jotra · December 5, 2022, 6:20pm

If I do a shutdown without first closing all open documents, when I next start LibreOffice I get a list of files needing recovery. Where does LibreOffice keep a record of which documents to put into that list?
Reasons for asking. I upgraded a users (NVME) storage device, installed Linux Mint 21, which came with LibreOffice 7.something. I copied over the users Home folder from the installation (LM20.3, LO6.4.7.2) on the SSD I took out.
This user tends to keep about 8 documents open all the time, and expects to do a recovery after each reboot. However, this recovery list was not preserved across the upgrade, so I presume it is held elsewhere than in the user Home folder structure.
Since I still have the original SSD, content intact. If the recovery list is in a file somewhere I may be able to copy it to the new installation (provided the format is compatible across versions) (it will NOT be a registry list, Linux is NOT Windows!).
JT:

ajlittoz · December 5, 2022, 6:45pm

This information is necessarily in the user home directory, but it is kept in a hidden file/directory (which name starts with a dot). Depending on how you copied from the old disk, hidden directories/files may not be copied. cp has option -a to work in “archive mode” where everything, including hidden files/directories, are also copied.

Jotra · December 5, 2022, 6:57pm

While far from a Linux expert, (bearing in mind that my definition of ´expert´ may be very different to yours) I did copy everything, including hidden folders and files, from the original Home profile to the new one. I also verified a complete match between old and new.
I too would have expected to find the data in a hidden Home folder, perhaps the v6.something recovery data is incompatible with V7.something.

ajlittoz · December 5, 2022, 6:59pm

Perhaps @mikekaganski has the answer.

EarnestAl · December 6, 2022, 9:51am

The location of temporary files is defined in Tools > Options > LibreOffice > Paths.

In Windows, each LibreOffice temporary file is usually in a folder named in the style luxxxxxxxxxx.tmp where the x is some character or number. There may be one or more files of similar name within the folder, choose the largest and most recent and copy it to a different location. You will need to find each of the eight .tmp folders

Open LibreOffice, click File > Open, navigate to the copied file, select it and click Open. Save As by another name.

Jotra · December 30, 2022, 10:24pm

Thank you, the files were where you said, but Libreoffice 7.something (as installed by Linux Mint 21) did not take notice of the content. Now very much a historical issue, my wife just re-opened the files manually and has been using LO daily since. I am not at all certain she would have even noticed the upgrade if I hadn’t told her about it.
I presume path in registrymodifications.xcu being /org.openoffice... is a historical hangover.

mikekaganski · December 6, 2022, 10:40am

The AutoRecovery information (enabled using Options|Load/Save|General) is stored in two places:

The documents themselves are under Backups directory (see @EarnestAl’s comment, where Paths options are discussed); they are named like original_filename.orig_ext_N.odt (e.g., CommentTest.odt_0.odt). Note that no matter what your document’s original format is, the AutoRecovery uses ODF, because it must make sure to store anything you edited into the opened document; imagine that you opened a TXT; using the original format, any bold would be lost in the AutoRecovery, and what if you intended to Save As into another format?
They are registered in the profile’s registrymodifications.xcu, like this:

<item oor:path="/org.openoffice.Office.Recovery/RecoveryInfo"><prop oor:name="Crashed" oor:op="fuse"><value>true</value></prop></item>
<item oor:path="/org.openoffice.Office.Recovery/RecoveryInfo"><prop oor:name="SessionData" oor:op="fuse"><value>false</value></prop></item>
<item oor:path="/org.openoffice.Office.Recovery/RecoveryList"><node oor:name="recovery_item_1" oor:op="replace"><prop oor:name="Title" oor:op="fuse"><value>CommentTest.odt</value></prop><prop oor:name="Filter" oor:op="fuse"><value>writer8</value></prop><prop oor:name="Module" oor:op="fuse"><value>com.sun.star.text.TextDocument</value></prop><prop oor:name="TempURL" oor:op="fuse"><value>file:///C:/Users/mikek/AppData/Roaming/LibreOffice/4/user/backup/CommentTest.odt_0.odt</value></prop><prop oor:name="ViewNames" oor:op="fuse"><value></value></prop><prop oor:name="OriginalURL" oor:op="fuse"><value>file:///D:/Downloads/CommentTest.odt</value></prop><prop oor:name="TemplateURL" oor:op="fuse"><value></value></prop><prop oor:name="DocumentState" oor:op="fuse"><value>513</value></prop></node></item>