Recovering Settings from Old or Corrupt Preferences

From NeoWiki

Corrupted preferences files can sometimes cause difficulties with NeoOffice. In these instances, the Troubleshooting Tips page recommends removing the NeoOffice 2.2 folder from ~/Library/Preferences. This will solve the problem with corrupted preferences, but trashing the entire folder means that you will lose custom defined autotexts, templates, backups, key commands, menus, etc.

In order to salvage these items, it is necessary to isolate the corrupted folder in the preferences file. You can do so following this method:

1. If you have not done so already, move your (corrupted) NeoOffice 2.2 folder from ~/Library/Preferences to the Desktop.
2. Make a copy (in Finder File>Duplicate) of the NeoOffice 2.2 folder. Keep this is a safe place until the procedure is done. (This gives you a backup in case you make a mistake)
3. Select half of the folders in the users folder of the old preferences folder (The one on the desktop) and drag them into the new (uncorrupted) folder (~/Library/Preferences/NeoOffice-2.2/user). When it warns that this will replace folders of the same name, click ok
4. Restart NeoOffice and check to see if the bug you experienced reappears. Quit NeoOffice. If the problem did not reappear, the first half of the preferences are ok; add the second half of the old preferences back into the current preferences folder, restart NeoOffice, and see if the bug reappears.
5. Once you know which half of the preferences contains the corruption, pull that half (the one with a corruption somewhere) back onto the desktop. Quit NeoOffice.
6. Put one folder of this corrupted half from the desktop into the current preferences file (~/Library/Preferences/NeoOffice-2.2/user), restart NeoOffice, and check for the bug. (Be sure to quit NeoOffice between checks)
7. Repeat this until you find the offending folder
8. If there doesn't appear to be anything vital to your work in the corrupted folder, you can drag it to the trash.
9. If it is a critical folder (like templates) Continue this process with the files in the folder.

If you know that there are only a few folders that contain work you don't want to lose (e.g. autotext, templates or backup), you can try just dragging those back in one at a time and see if they create problems, rather than starting with the "half and half" method.

Preferences Locations

Here are the locations for the preferences data users are most likely to need to save:

• autotexts in ~/Library/Preferences/NeoOffice-2.2/user/autotext
• galleries in ~/Library/Preferences/NeoOffice-2.2/user/gallery
• templates in ~/Library/Preferences/NeoOffice-2.2/user/template
• backups in ~/Library/Preferences/NeoOffice-2.2/user/backup
• autocorrection in ~/Library/Preferences/NeoOffice-2.2/user/autocorrect
• macros in ~/Library/Preferences/NeoOffice-2.2/user/basic/Standard
• databases in ~/Library/Preferences/NeoOffice-2.2/user/database
• writer keyboard shortcuts in ~/Library/Preferences/NeoOffice-2.2/user/config/soffice.cfg/modules/swriter/accelerator/en-US/current.xml
  • If you use a language other than US English, replace /en-US/ with the folder name corresponding to your language.
  • keyboard shortcuts for other modules can be found by boring down through similarly named folders, starting from ~/Library/Preferences/NeoOffice-2.2/user/config/soffice.cfg/modules/
• color palettes in ~/Library/Preferences/NeoOffice-2.2/user/config

It may be possible to copy some Installed extensions by copying over the ~/Library/Preferences/NeoOffice-2.2/user/uno_packages/ folder, but in many cases you are better off re-installing the extension using the Extension Manager within NeoOffice. (The Extension Manager can be accessed from the Tools menu.)

Remember that ~ refers to your home folder.

If you have added some paths or changed them, you can find the appropriate locations by choosing the NeoOffice menu then the Preferences sub-menu, the NeoOffice section and at last the Paths item.

Manually importing NeoOffice 2.1 Preferences into NeoOffice 2.2 Preferences

Sometimes when users upgrade from NeoOffice 2.1 to NeoOffice 2.2, certain preferences (including autotexts, templates, etc.) don't transfer over. This is apparently due to bugs in the underlying OpenOffice.org code. To manually "import" these preferences, do the following:

• Make a copy of the NeoOffice 2.2 folder found in ~/Library/Preferences/
• Do the same with the NeoOffice 2.1 folder in the same location
• Move these copies to a safe place (they are your backups in case something goes wrong)
• Locate the folders in the (original) NeoOffice 2.1 folder that need to be transferred. See the paths listed above; just replace NeoOffice 2.2 with NeoOffice 2.1 in the path names
• Copy the files inside these folders and put them inside the appropriate folders in the NeoOffice 2.2 folder (or replace the entire folder)
• You may want to move one folder at a time, and then start NeoOffice, making sure that things are working correctly before moving another set of preferences.

N.B. This procedure is experimental in nature. It is possible that doing this may, in some cases, create problems in the functioning of NeoOffice. This is why it is imperative to create a backup of the preferences folders before beginning to move things.

Creating a backup set of preferences

Once you have a working set of preferences, complete with all of your customizations, autotexts, etc., you might want to make a backup copy of the known-good set in case of future corruption. Simply navigate to ~/Library/Preferences/ in the Finder and ctrl-click the NeoOffice-2.2 folder. Choose Create Archive of “NeoOffice-2.2” from the Finder context menu. You now have a convenient .zip archive of all your preferences, so you can easily return to a known-good state in case of problems at any point in the future.