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

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?

Solution 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.

Solution 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

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

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