I had an unexpected loss of power earlier. I was working on a paper on OOo. When I rebooted and attempted to reopen the document, I was first greeted with a prompt asking for an ASCII filter selection. Then OOo attempted document recovery, which hung and crashed. Every attempt to open since, I am greeted with the ASCII filter selection, and then given the following dialog box:
"Document file 'xxxxxx.odt' is locked for editing by:
Unknown User
Open document read-only or open a copy of the document for editing.
(Open Read-only) (Open Copy) (Cancel)"
When I attempt to open it either in read-only or copy, the entire document is 6 pages of pound signs (#). There is no lock file in the directory. There is nothing confidential in the file, so I can attach here if preferred.
ETA: Even showing hidden files, I do not see a .lock file.
Pound signs in document locked for editing by: Unknown User
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Pound signs in document locked for editing by: Unknown User
OpenOffice 3.2.1 on Windows 7 64-bit
Re: "locked for editing by: Unknown User"
There is nothing that can be done, the file is corrupted and there is no known method to recover it.
OpenOffice.org v3.3, LibO v3.32 on Ubuntu 10.10 and Win7
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- Posts: 2
- Joined: Sun Dec 12, 2010 2:00 am
Re: "locked for editing by: Unknown User"
Thanks for the swift reply. Now if only I had been smart enough to turn on the backup BEFORE this happened...
OpenOffice 3.2.1 on Windows 7 64-bit
Re: Pound signs in document locked for editing by: Unknown U
Don't throw away your documents too quickly.
To me it looks like [Some]Office has the filename registered somewhere, because a file that gave me the 'locked for editing by unknown user' message could be opened following a different path. In my case this was sftp versus sshmount, but I guess moving the file to another directory or renaming it would also have 'fixed' this. So, before you start trashing your files: move, copy and/or rename them first, and try to open them again.
To me it looks like [Some]Office has the filename registered somewhere, because a file that gave me the 'locked for editing by unknown user' message could be opened following a different path. In my case this was sftp versus sshmount, but I guess moving the file to another directory or renaming it would also have 'fixed' this. So, before you start trashing your files: move, copy and/or rename them first, and try to open them again.
LibreOffice 3.4.3 on Ubuntu
Re: Pound signs in document locked for editing by: Unknown U
"Locked for editing" messages come because the lock files are left after a crash. If the file opens with the ASCII filter box, unless it is a .csv file, it is almost certainly dead.
Apache OpenOffice 4.1.15 on Xubuntu 22.04.4 LTS
Re: Pound signs in document locked for editing by: Unknown U
In my case, and in some other cases with 'Unknown users' I read about, there where no lock files. Apparently there are more situations where the program may throw a 'Document locked' error.
LibreOffice 3.4.3 on Ubuntu
- Hagar Delest
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Re: Pound signs in document locked for editing by: Unknown U
Sadly, nothing to do: 22 page term paper replaced with pound signs.
Check the temporary folder of the system (see in OOo Tools>Options>OOo>Paths). If there are folders like sgmlf.tmp with a file having the same name inside, make a copy of that file, rename it in .odt and cross your fingers.
Else, nothing to do I fear.
Check the temporary folder of the system (see in OOo Tools>Options>OOo>Paths). If there are folders like sgmlf.tmp with a file having the same name inside, make a copy of that file, rename it in .odt and cross your fingers.
Else, nothing to do I fear.
LibreOffice 7.6.2.1 on Xubuntu 23.10 and 7.6.4.1 portable on Windows 10
Re: Pound signs in document locked for editing by: Unknown U
Hopefully it's related to this thread which fixed it for me:
http://user.services.openoffice.org/en/ ... 30&t=40683
Here's the post that worked for me:
With OpenOffice closed, look in the directory in which you have saved the original file, with your computer set to display hidden files. You are looking for a file with name like
.~lock.test.odt#
Delete that file and now you should be able to save your new file under the same original name.
This is a lock file left over after the upgrade caused your computer to shut down. Similar files can be left after a crash.
http://user.services.openoffice.org/en/ ... 30&t=40683
Here's the post that worked for me:
With OpenOffice closed, look in the directory in which you have saved the original file, with your computer set to display hidden files. You are looking for a file with name like
.~lock.test.odt#
Delete that file and now you should be able to save your new file under the same original name.
This is a lock file left over after the upgrade caused your computer to shut down. Similar files can be left after a crash.
LibreOffice 3.4.3 on Ubuntu 11.10