Re: [libreoffice-users] Calc will not save file after sheet deleted [FOLLOW-UP]

On Fri, 2011-08-12 at 13:52 +1000, Simon Cropper wrote: 

> Hi Everyone,
>
> I have been doing some follow-up investigations that I thought you might 
> like to be made aware.
>
> First, why? Well after testing the file that I recreated by copying the 
> text, formula and styles I could not cause the error to occur again. 
> This is what I reported yesterday. I then proceeded with importing the 
> few images and 'artwork' objects from the old file to the new. After 
> several saves and sheet manipulations I noticed the file became unstable 
> again.
>
> The outcome of my investigation was that one of the image files used on 
> one of the sheets had become corrupted* and adding this file in caused 
> the file to become unstable - eventually exhibiting the problem I 
> mentioned about not being able to save after a sheet was deleted. These 
> 'corrupted' files are relatively benign with the error only becoming 
> apparent *once* you attempt to delete the sheet. So somehow the error 
> caused problems with the broader 'workbook' structure not the sheet 
> structure. Although I compared files between different versions of the 
> file the XML were too varied (usually style names and definitions; 
> content was identical).
>
>     * note I say corrupted but it rendered OK and only resulted
>     in the observed behaviour one a sheet is deleted. I 'deem' it
>     corrupted as once replaced with a clean version render and
>     saved as a new file by GIMP, the problem disappeared.
>
> The error was with the particular corrupt objects. On recreating new 
> images and inserting them into a file I have not been able to trigger 
> any problems. If I cut-and-paste from the original 'corrupt' file the 
> file becomes unstable after a few saves and sheet manipulations.
>
> So the steps for salvage is...
> 1. recreate a new file with the exact number of sheets as the original. 
> Ensure each sheet names are the same.
> 2. Cut and Paste each sheet. Make sure you 'Paste special' limiting the 
> content being placed in the new file to text, numbers, date & time, 
> formulas and formats.
> 3. If you have images in the file. Recreate / Save using another 
> package. As mentioned I used GIMP.
> 4. Insert new copies of the images into file. *Don't* cut-and-paste 
> objects from the old file.
> 5. If you have any lines, text boxes and artwork; recreate them from new.
>
> During this process...
> - Save as a new version (+tabs, +data, +images, +other objects) 
> following each step.
> - Test each version thoroughly before proceeding.
> - Only add one object at a time, so if something goes wrong you can 
> isolate the problem component.
> - To check it is not a bug try and recreate with a fresh file.
>
> A couple of quick notes that may be valuable to others...
> - ODS files are archives. Use an archive facility to extract the data 
> inside. Inspect the contents in the folders to see what is different.
> - On every 'Save as' the file size changes. This is not due to changes 
> in the file contents, but rather in changes in how the components of the 
> file is compressed/archived. If you open a file, add objects then save, 
> the file size with be so big. Open that file and "Save as" a new name 
> and the file will be a different size. If you extract the files the 
> contents of all the files and directories are identical. It is just the 
> internal archive facility in LO will decide the best compaction routine 
> based on what it encounters.
> - The content.xml file can be quite large and has no internal 
> end-of-line characters. This make it difficult to open and be parse by 
> various text editors, xml viewers and comparison facilities. To insert a 
> EOL character after the end of each tag (i.e. >), I used the following 
> command in the terminal (requires Linux).
>
>     cat content.xml | sed -e 's/>/>\n/g' > content_with_linebreaks.xml
>
>     cat just spews the content of the text file to the standard output.
>     I then pipe it to sed, where I used regular expressions to find '>'
>     and replace every instance of it with '>\n'. I then compared the
>     contents with Diffuse.

Snip

+1

I wonder how the images got corrupted, interesting. 



> Cheers Simon
>
>     Simon Cropper
>     Principal Consultant
>     Botanicus Australia Pty Ltd
>     PO Box 160, Sunshine, VIC
>     W: www.botanicusaustralia.com.au



-- 
Jay Lozier
jslozier@gmail.com

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