Recovering unreadable Word document with 'Sorry, something went wrong' error

Question

Level 1

4 points

Recovering unreadable Word document with 'Sorry, something went wrong' error

After working with a word document and adding more sections, all of a sudden the document will not open.

Message window opens “word found unreadable content in document.docx. Do you want to recover the contents of this document? If you trust the source of this document, click Yes”. I click Yes and then a new message window opens and says “Sorry something went wrong and document.docx can’t open.”

this is a document that I created with an itinerary for a 10 day vacation that I update with information from research, AI, concierges etc.

Now I can’t open the document. This happens on a frequent basis with various word documents that I update over time and I lose all access to information.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Original Title: Word documents not opening

iPad, iPadOS 18

Posted on Aug 8, 2025 11:59 PM

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Answer 1

VikingOSX

Level 10

122,160 points

Aug 9, 2025 07:48 AM in response to Ariel1205

Contact Microsoft. Word is not an Apple supportable product, and there may be convolutions in your document that cannot be recovered.

If you have a Time Machine backup, you may select different dates from the past iterations of this document to restore it and determine if they can be opened. If you have Time Machine icon on your menu bar, select Browse Time Machine Backups. If you don't have that icon present, launch Time Machine from your Applications folder.

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Answer 2

Aug 9, 2025 08:44 AM in response to Ariel1205

This Microsoft app issue is best asked of Microsoft in a Microsoft forum, as was suggested above. They’ll probably also know how to preserve a copy of the files involved if that’s going to be necessary here, so that a failed recovery attempt doesn’t clobber something needed.

Your footer shows an iPad, but your text doesn’t indicate which platform you’re using Word on.

If you have access to a Mac, try importing the document into LibreOffice. LibreOffice can read some documents Office apps can’t. With an iPad only and no Mac available, try Collabra Office, an app which is based on LibreOffice. see if that can open the file.

If you’re trying to use hosted storage with Word including iCloud Drive and Microsoft OneDrive, don’t. Try keeping the files locally, and relocating them when your editing is completed.

If this is a Mac and you have a Time Machine backup as was suggested above, check it, and see if an older and uncorrupted version is available. iPad is tougher, as per-file restores from iCloud backups, and from backups on Mac and Windows, aren’t nearly as easy.

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