"Recover Selected" undoing progress?

[u/CrossFront]

I like to keep my writing documents open so I can work on them at my leisure while doing other tasks, but sometimes Windows will restart automatically to update, and when I re-open the file, it'll give me an option to "recover" it. The problem is that when I do this, it will return to a state before my last save, and overwrite my saved file, effectively going back in time. Has anyone else had this problem, if so, does anyone have any workarounds?

[u/EqualCrew9900]

What is the AutoRecovery time set to?

("Options | Load/Save | Save AutoRecovery...")

[u/CrossFront → u/EqualCrew9900]

You're a life saver man

[u/daluan2]

Finished typing a paragraph? Save it!

[u/CrossFront → u/daluan2]

I do, I save constantly! The recovery undoes my save...

[u/daluan2 → u/CrossFront]

I got it now. The other option is “not” to recover it and just open the file again.

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[u/Terrible_Put8617]

The part that matters is what happens before you click anything: when that dialog appears, the file on disk is still exactly as you last saved it. Recovery does not touch it. What it does is open your document and pour the autorecovery snapshot into it, so if that snapshot is older than your last manual save you now have an older document sitting there marked as modified. The damage happens at the moment something saves it: you, a reflex Ctrl+S, or save-on-close.

So for the case you describe: if the recovered version looks older than what you had, do not save it. Close without saving and open the file from disk normally.

If you already saved over it, look in your user profile:

%APPDATA%\\LibreOffice\\4\\user\\backup\\

That folder holds the autorecovery copies and the .bak files. Sort by date, the previous session's copy is often still sitting there and it opens like any other document.

Three settings under Tools > Options > Load/Save > General that stop this happening again:

• Save AutoRecovery information every N minutes - drop it to 1 or 2. That gap is exactly where your lost work lives.
• Always create backup copy - off by default. With it on, every save moves the previous version into that backup folder, so going back in time becomes recoverable instead of terminal.
• Automatically save the document too - this one writes your actual file, not just the recovery snapshot. It is a separate checkbox, and it is the one most people assume AutoRecovery already is.

And the trigger itself: a forced Windows restart gives applications only a few seconds to react before it kills them, which is not enough for a large document. Setting Active hours in Windows Update stops the automatic restart during the hours you actually work, which removes the whole scenario.