Files recovered to older versions after reboot: help needed

[NoOp]

On 05/12/2008 11:08 AM, Dani Matielo wrote:
> Dear all,
> 
> I use Ubuntu and was working on a file in OpenOffice and the system crashed.
> I managed to save the files I was working, and then re-started the system,
> but then all the changes I have saved to the file in the last two days are
> gone!
> 
> The file is still there, but in an older version. I have searched the system
> to try to find other versions, but it seems they don't exist. And I am 100%
> sure that I was saving it while I was working.
> 
> I am not an advanced user, though, mostly I try to solve the problems I find
> searching foruns and pages on Internet, but I haven't find any information
> about these in the last 3 hours of intense research and I have to deliver
> this report tomorrow and am a little desperate.
> 

Your work is most likely gone. The reason being is that the default
Temporary files path is your tmp directory. When it crashed & you saved
your work, it most likely was saved to /tmp. When you rebooted, the
system cleared the tmp folder on start up & hence your work. You _may_
get lucky and still find it there, but I doubt it.

Have a look in /tmp. Also (see #1 below) check your Paths to see where
your 'Backups' path is. You may find that the files are in
/home/<user>/openoffice.org2/user/backup if you had #2 below set.

This has been an ongoing problem with OOo for as long as I can remember.
To avoid this happening in the future:

1. From within OOo: Tools|Options|OpenOffice.org|Paths|Temporary files -
select "Edit" and change the path to something other than /tmp. I
generally make a folder in my ~/.openoffice.org directory or my
Documents directory specifically for this very reason.

2. Set "Always create backup copy": Tools|Options|Load/Save|General

Good luck.

BTW: This will can occur with MS Office & Windows - so it's not just an
OOo/Ubuntu thing.