Despite my fear of being considered too dumb to use OO, here's my experience: when a document I was working on (just trying to insert a line by hitting "return" between two lines) suddenly became all hashtag gibberish - as then did all my stored OO files - I reinstalled OO. And all was well.
On Jan 5, 2014, at 11:15 AM, Rob Weir wrote: > On Sun, Jan 5, 2014 at 7:23 AM, Rory O'Farrell <[email protected]> wrote: >> On Sun, 05 Jan 2014 12:47:59 +0100 >> Andrea Pescetti <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> Hagar Delest wrote: >>>> losing the file saved last time is just unacceptable, it's a major data >>>> loss (P1 in the bug tracker). This problem should be investigated as >>>> seriously as possible. >>>> No bashing needed, just look at the facts. >>> >>> The problem here is all with reproducing the bug. OpenOffice has so many >>> users, on so many systems, that even a problem that occurs, say, once in >>> ten millions save operations will get reported. >>> >>> It's a fact that there exist some users who report losing a document. >>> But it's not even clear if the culprit in those cases is OpenOffice, or >>> the operating system, or a RAM problem, or a disk failure... Like you, >>> I've been a regular OpenOffice user for many years and I never had a >>> similar problem. >>> >>> A random note if this can help: to study this problem, once I tried to >>> deliberately fill the hard disk until I had a few MBytes free. Then I >>> opened a heavy presentation file, with many images, and edited it >>> normally, adding and removing content. An automatic backup failed (due >>> to the full disk) and I think an error message was displayed (I/O >>> error). I then tried a save operation, which failed with the same error. >>> But then I was stuck: the file I was editing was corrupted (the images >>> did not display) and the last saved version on disk was corrupted too >>> (of course this was a test so I had made a backup before testing). Maybe >>> this deserves a better investigation. >>> >>> It could be that some or all of these bug reports are due to a full disk >>> (I do know some people who work with <100 MBytes free on disk, so it's >>> not even a "1 in millions" scenario). The good thing is that this >>> scenario can be reproduced. >>> >>> Regards, >>> Andrea. >>> >> >> >> I think there are two problems here, which both Hagar and I are aware of >> from the Forum. One is the Hashtag problem, which I agree is not readily >> reproducible and in many cases may be caused by over hasty close down of OO >> or operating system, the other associated problem is the erasure of the >> saved copy which seems to occur often alongside the hashtag problem; no >> matter what causes the hashtag problem, I'm sure we all agree that a saved >> copy of the file should not be spontaneously erased. >> >> The question should be asked "When does OpenOffice erase the previous copy >> of the file?". Surely this should only be after the Save process reaches a >> conclusion. I can recollect from my CP/M days that one had to adopt a >> certain sequence in saving a file for best security. One saved the file to >> File.new (say), then renamed File.org to File.bak then renamed File.new to >> File.org. Is this or a similar protocol being followed in OO? Perhaps some >> temporary relief can be obtained by changing the options in OpenOffice to >> _always_ generate a backup. >> > > That would introduce other failure modes: > > 1) User would require disk space for two complete copies of the > document. So in the marginal case a user might load a document, > change just a character and then be unable to save. > > 2) Some file systems handle modify and create permissions separately. > So you could have the ability to modify a document, but not create a > new (temporary) one. > > There are certainly cases where such an approach could help. But it > is tricky when dealing with the exceptions. > > The other thing to watch for is that some users cannot find their > files after saving, even if there is no problem with the saving. They > forget the same, what folder they used, etc. > > -Rob > > >> If the user turns such an option off, then on his own head be the >> responsibility for file loss! >> >> I should say that I have not experienced the hashtag problem in 6 years of >> heavy use of OO Writer on Windows 2000/XP or linux systems. >> >> >> >> -- >> Rory O'Farrell <[email protected]> >> >> --------------------------------------------------------------------- >> To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] >> For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected] >> > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] > For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected] > _______________________________________________________ Unlimited Disk, Data Transfer, PHP/MySQL Domain Hosting http://www.doteasy.com --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
