I am using LO writer for a research project. I worked on my document all day yesterday, saving several times and creating a backup on my external drive at the end of my workday. This morning I open the file on my computer and it’s the file from the day before yesterday - as if I hadn’t written two very painstaking pages yesterday. The document info states that it was last modified on July 1, and today is July 3, so the work I did on July 2 is lost. So somehow it did not save when I hit the save button and somehow reverted to the older version? My computer didn’t crash, LO didn’t crash, everything went smoothly yesterday. I know how illogical and impossible this sounds. Let me assure you that I am of perfectly sound mind. Because the work is hard I am meticulous about my backup on my external drive, but this version is also the version from the day before, July 1!!!
This is hard research work I am doing and it is the second time in the past two weeks that this has happened and I cried hard over all the work I’ve lost. Does anybody have any idea what is going on here? Guess I’ll have to create additional pdf backups and save those externally…going back to Microsoft is not really an option for me.
To get useful help, you must provide a minimum of “technical” details. What is your OS (Window$ xx, MacOS y.y, Linux distro z, some other, …)? Which LO version (mention full version with at least 4 numbers)? Save format (odt, docx, other, …)?
How do you open your document?
- double-click on its icon
- open LO first and click on thumbnail in Start Center screen
- use of
File>Recent Documentsmenu
How do you save?
-
File>Saveor Ctl+S which overwrites the document -
File>Save Aswhich requests a new name -
File>Save a Copywhich also requests a new name but does not change current document name
How do you backup?
- from within LO with
File>Save a Copy - outside LO after end of session
Have you attempted to find your documents with your file browser search feature? Sometimes documents are saved in unexpected locations due to weird manipulations in the application.
You may not have waited long enough when saving to the external drive.
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Videos/Preventing_data_disaster
Accidents happen.
Sometimes, by accident, you save in a different spot. It may also be that you saved using a different storage format. In both cases, a fresh copy is created and your original document remains untouched.
@ajlittoz already covered the ground, but here is a “recovery shortlist”:
- Look through the “Recent documents” list on Writer’s file menu.
- Look through the “Recent” category provided by the file manager (if it provides one).
- Look in the root folder of your external drive.
- Search using your file manager.
I guess you mean Microsoft Office, not operating system. If you are on Windows AND you save to the Desktop, then in the event of Windows going back to the last restore point for some reason only the file at the last restore point will be available, not more recent versions. Documents folder is not affected.
Another possibility is that your antivirus might silently prevent LibreOffice from writing to folders or modifying existing documents. After updates to LO add the new version to the antivirus Allowed List.