I have a large (~1MB) .docx file with significant personal value that was lost over the weekend. Unfortunately, I am not 100% sure exactly what happened here, but here’s the short version:
The file was saved to an external SSD and was being worked with on a brand new install of OpenOffice (Desktop Editors version) on a brand new PC running a fresh install of Win11 over the weekend. During that time, the program locked up the machine to the point where a hard reset was necessary and that was the start of my headaches here.
After rebooting, I immediately noticed the document had shrunk to ~40KB and contained almost no text. What little text is present looks like a mangled version of the word I was typing just as things went south.
Other details:
Recent Files section within the home menu of the program shows two versions of the file, but the only options shown for both in the ellipsis menu are Open, Show in Folder, Remove from List and Clear. Both versions will open but, again, both show only very limited, useless text.
The directory \Users<User>\AppData\Local\ONLYOFFICE\DesktopEditors\data\recovery contains no files - almost as if OnlyOffice was not aware of crash.
I do have a backup of the file, but that backup is a couple weeks old and the gap unfortunately contains a lot of work that is important to me. Also, I am very familiar with file recovery (carving, forensics, etc.) but am new to OnlyOffice.
Bottom line is single copy saved to a new SSD with no edits on that drive does not bode well for recovery. I’ve also tried carving for compressed archives (zip, rar, etc.) but with no success so far. If anyone is aware of any other places I could/should be looking other than memory (long shot at best), please do tell.
Thanks for the detailed description — really sorry this happened, especially with such an important file.
In normal crash situations, corrupted or unsaved files automatically land in the “Recover Files” tab on the start page (in the folder %LocalAppData%\ONLYOFFICE\DesktopEditors\data\recovery),
but in your case that folder is empty — this is the first time I’ve seen exactly this behaviour.
It looks like something went wrong while writing to the external SSD during the crash (maybe the file was being rewritten in-place instead of the usual safe-save method). Because of that, unfortunately, we don’t have a “good” previous version or autosave copy.
We’d really like to reproduce the issue to understand how it happened and prevent it in the future.
If you still have the SSD untouched and are willing to help, could you:
Let us know the exact steps that led to the lock-up (what you were doing right before the freeze)
If comfortable, share the two current 40 KB files with us (via private messages)
No pressure, of course — we completely understand if the content is private.
Again, really sorry for the trouble and the lost work. Let me know how you’d like to proceed.
Yeah, odd behavior indeed. Agree with you on something going wrong as the file was being written. I have an almost OCD tendency to use CTRL+S as I’m going and did so with this file as usual, but alas.
Unfortunately (and very stupidly), the only updated copy of the file was the one being worked on. This was not long after it was first copied to the SSD, so the chances of recovering copies written elsewhere are pretty minimal.
As for what was being done just prior, I unfortunately can’t remember much other than just working on the file and doing the usual CTRL+S periodically, same as usual. The only weird thing I can think of that might have contributed is that the work was being done on a new laptop with a keyboard layout slightly different from what I normally use. That led to some slight missteps and weird things happening with text being highlighted. I do remember having to CTRL+Z/undo some things because of this but hard to believe this would cause a lock-up and reduce a 600-something page document to rubble.
As for the 40KB copies, yeah - document is quite personal. My main gig is actually digital forensics, though. And I can tell you for sure, there’s not much to work with within the “new” file and nothing recoverable in adjacent clusters on the drive. FWIW, I’ve also tried carving for docx, XML and zip fragments. There’s a little bit there but, of course, nothing containing the most recent, now lost content. Yay SSDs.
I’m thinking this is most likely a dead end at this point but am open to any other suggestions you might have. Again, thanks for the reply. I do appreciate you trying.
