LibreOffice always shows recovery process at startup due to failing recovery items

Question

LibreOffice always starts with the recovery process for me now. It has a number of 'documents to recover' for which recovery fails. I have no need for these documents anymore. How to tell LibreOffice to give up?

Answer 1

Great! I tried to recreate this issue and now I can't remove the failed recovery screen.

The way to fix it is to hit cancel on the recovery screen, instead of trying (and failing) the recovery (source). Works for me.

Answer 2

Hitting Cancel as other posters suggest is not a solution for me because the same dialog keeps being shown every time I close and reopen the application.

Ubuntu 14.04.2 with LibreOffice version 4.2.8.2

The 'simple' solution for me was to do the following:

1. close any open LibreOffice windows navigate to where LibreOffice stores registrymodifications.xcu
   • for me from a default install it's stored under /.config/libreoffice/4/user
2. make a backup of registrymodifications.xcu
3. edit registrymodifications.xcu with text editor (such as gedit)
4. search for the string RecoveryList
5. completely remove any item tags containing the path /org.openoffice.Office.Recovery/RecoveryList
   • delete from - will be one line but can appear as several if word wrap is turned on
   • NOTE: Only delete the RecoveryList items that you DO NOT, in fact, want to recover
6. Save your changes, close the file
7. Next time you open a LibreOffice file with LibreOffice it won't force you to go through the tedius recovery failure process

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NOTE: LibreOffice writes to the registrymodifications.xcu file often while it is running - if you modify the file while LibreOffice is running your changes will be overwritten/ignored

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A more robust answer (providing file locations for different operating systems, etc) can be found via this link: Question/Answer from LibreOffice Help site

Answer 3

This problem seems to appear in Ubuntu 12.04.

Of course you can cancel the recovery process but that's not a solution because you will have to do it every time you start LibreOffice, even after having closed all documents properly after the last session.

The bug is caused by the package lo-menubar that offers HUD functionality for LibreOffice.

So the real solution of the problem is sudo apt-get remove lo-menubar.

Answer 4

A better solution, without messing with any configuration, set-up or so, is to write again a file with the same name in the same place.

1. Open LibreOffice Writer (or Calc or any LO program) normally and cancel the recovery process. The program should open with a "No title" document.

2. Write anything in the new document and save it with the exact name of the file LO is asking you to recover. If you have more than one, you have to recreate each and everyone. The name(s) has(have) to be EXACTLY the same, with the same format and in the same folder and disk.

3. Open the fake file(s) and the problem should be fixed.

It worked for me and now I don't have the recovery window as a welcome!!!

Answer 5

Pressing Esc when the recovery notice shows up gives you the option to cancel the recovery. Then click cancel. This worked for me. See https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/libreoffice/+question/167956 answer #2. Don't know about answer #6. In the past this didn't work for me, so I didn't try it this time.

Answer 6

I ran into this problem. It kept me in a continues loop until I added the --norestore option then it just crashed with the Signal 6 and list of libraries.

I added the LibreOffice ppa did the update and it worked without issue.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:libreoffice/ppa
sudo apt-get update

Answer 7

Have a look at: http://ask.libreoffice.org/en/question/6376/message-recovery-failed/

It's worked for me on Ubuntu 12.04, LibreOffice 4.0.2.4.

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Summary of URL: press 'cancel' or delete the contents of

<item oor:path="/org.openoffice.Office.Recovery/RecoveryList"> (ends with </item>)

from registrymodifications.xcu.

However this appears to only be a one-shot solution - it won't turn recovery off for future files.

Answer 8

If you're trying to abort a repetitious "rescue", even when the window has gone to gray and seems non-responsive, you can still X out with the 'close window' in the upper left. The program offers a chance to force quit. This may be your only option if the program is trying to open a corrupted file. At that point you would think you had lost all your unsaved work. Then a surprise query opens and offers to save any unsaved files with a new name... and the "rescue" window doesn't come back!

Answer 9

So I have been looking for an answer to the same thing and the best solution I have found is to change the open command for each of the apps Instructions navigate to /usr/share/applications find the files for the libreOffice apps for me it was these four

LibreOffice App Files

right click and select properties and add --norestore to the Command

Add To Command

Answer 10

I had the same problem. I did hit recovery and when it complete the process, I hit "ESC" instead other buttons. This way it opened the App with the recoverd file and I was able to save it now it is working correctly.

PS: hitting "ESC" in the first recovery pop-up window worked but I got to do this every time I open the App.

Answer 11

This has happened to me a few times with no cancel button in the file recovery dialog box. Clicking that dialog's window-close button just quits the application altogether and the same thing happens again on next start. I eventually got annoyed enough about it to write a workaround.

Save the following script as /usr/local/bin/fix-libreoffice-recovery-loop and mark it as executable:

#!/bin/sh -x
pkill soffice.bin
sleep 1
if pgrep soffice.bin
then
        pkill -9 soffice.bin
        sleep 1
        pgrep soffice.bin && exit
fi
cd ~/.config/libreoffice/4/user &&
xmlstarlet ed \
        -d '//item[@oor:path="/org.openoffice.Office.Recovery/RecoveryInfo"]' \
        -d '//item[@oor:path="/org.openoffice.Office.Recovery/RecoveryList"]' \
        <registrymodifications.xcu >fixed.xcu &&
mv -f fixed.xcu registrymodifications.xcu
sleep 1

To make it easy to use, add /usr/local/share/applications/unjam-libreoffice.desktop with the following content:

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Terminal=true
NoDisplay=false
Icon=libreoffice-startcenter
Type=Application
Categories=Office;X-Red-Hat-Base;X-SuSE-Core-Office;X-MandrivaLinux-Office-Other;
Exec=fix-libreoffice-recovery-loop
Name=Unjam LibreOffice
Comment=Use this to unjam LibreOffice when it gets stuck in an otherwise unbreakable document recovery loop.

You should now find Unjam LibreOffice alongside the other LibreOffice applications in the Office section of your main applications menu. If you click that next time you encounter an unbreakable LibreOffice recovery loop, you should see the script run briefly in its own Terminal window as it kills the running LibreOffice process and then deletes the document recovery list from the registry XML file inside the LibreOffice user profile.

You will need to have installed the xmlstarlet package to make this work, as it's used to edit the registry XML file.

Answer 12

Make it simple.. Please choose the cancel button and close the file.. After that it won't force you to go through the recovery process..