Apache OpenOffice Community Forum

I create and work on open office draw documents daily. Most of the time I save them and can reopen them with no issues. Although a couple of weeks ago and again today when I went to open a draw document a ASCII BOX FIRST POPS UP, so at first I just hit okay not understanding what it was and instead of opening my draw doc it opens up a writer document, which I never use and on the screen appears a document with the letter y covering the entire document. Hundereds of the letter y.

Since then I have tried to cancel that box when it pops up, and have hit every other single thing on there hoping it would just open my document. AND NOTHING, IT EITHER OPENS THE WRITER OR CANCELS IT OUT COMPLETELY.

I have found no explanation online for this issue and cannot figure it out. I have hundreds of hours into these documents and need to be able to retrieve them. WILL SOMEONE PLEASE PLEASE HELP!!

ALSO ONE MORE ISSUE, A LOT OF MY DOCUMENTS SOMETIMES AFTER I SAVE THEM WILL SHOW AS BEING LOCKED DOCUMENTS, AND I ALSO AM UNABLE TO UNLOCK THESE DOCUMENTS.

THANK YOU I APPRECIATE ALL THE HELP YOU PROVIDE.

Welcome to the Forums.
While I haven't heard of this happening in Draw before, this type of thing has been reported many times in regards to the Calc application.
Please reset your user profile as described here
As to the locked documents, this has also been reported many times. See Q16/A16 in the Mac FAQ
Don't worry about the fact that the FAQ is mainly for Macs... the part you want is relevant to PC's (ie: Windows) also.

a ASCII BOX FIRST POPS UP

In a nutshell your file is corrupted and has no useful information in it. This would be a good time to use your backups. If you haven't quite got around to implementing a backup strategy, please try the suggestions in [Tutorial] How to find and un-delete Writer temporary files; the same principles apply to Draw documents. Do this as soon as possible.

Both your problems - locked files and corrupted file - are possibly symptoms of unexpected closing of OpenOffice, or perhaps not using proper removal processes on external media like memory sticks.

Another quite common cause I see is when the applications are not properly shut down before the computer is turned off. Usually the Windows shutdown takes too long, user does not see the warning signs (sometimes for good reasons, sometimes not so good), loses patience and forces the shutdown (holding the power button down, or pulling the plug).

Post back here or send me a pm if this applies to your situation.

misslatida wrote:I have hundreds of hours into these documents and need to be able to retrieve them. WILL SOMEONE PLEASE PLEASE HELP!!

AOO cannot have affected more than one file at a time so something else is happening here. It could be a recent Windows 10 update which lost all user files so that may be the cause of the problem. Google it for how to get your files back or search the forum - there is a post about it.

If you would like to send me a few "broken" files I will see if there is anything which can be done. I have sent you an email with my ID.

Edit: See Microsoft's latest Windows 10 update may delete user files. If this has happened to you then all your user files, photos, music etc; and not only your text files as you report, will have been removed.

misslatida wrote:Also one more issue, a lot of my documents sometimes after I save them will show as being locked documents, and I also am unable to unlock these documents.

Stop AOO. Then:

1. Start > Control Panel (or Settings) > Folder options. Tick Show hidden files and folders.

2. Delete all lock files in the folder in which the document is saved. They are hidden files and they will have names like .~lock.Fred.odg#. Alternatively Start > Search. Type .~lock*.* and search for them. Click Show more files. Delete them all.

3. Reboot.