Premiere Pro 2025 project file corrupted & autosaves also won’t open

[Jake21959928xe7k]

I'm working on a music video project and today the main project file stopped opening. Every time I try I get this error:

“The project appears to be damaged, it cannot be opened.”

Every auto-save version I try is also giving the same error. I’ve tried opening in an older version (25.2.3), resetting the preferences, and importing the projects/sequences into a new blank project. I looked into the different XML repair tools online but didn’t find a clear path or anything that worked.

I exported what I had at the halfway point as a flattened video/stem so I at least have something to continue from. That’s usable, but I’d much rather recover the actual sequence/project if possible (to preserve cuts, nested edits, layer structure, etc.).

If someone is willing to look at the corrupted .prproj and autosave files, I can share the file. Even just knowing whether it’s salvageable would help me decide how much to rebuild vs start over from the exported video.

System / context:

• Adobe Premiere Pro 2025 (Tried 25.3/25.2.3)

• Windows 11 

• I have my project file and its autosaves saved on an External SSD which might be what got me

Anything I can try immediately? And if someone is willing to take a quick look, what’s the best way to package/share the file?

Thanks in advance. I’ve already learned the hard way to back up projects to other hard drives manually from here on out, but I’d love to recover what I can from this one.

[MyerPj]

As far as I can tell, it's really trashed. I can typically open a project using 7z. Here's how:

     1) Right-Click the COPY of the project and from the 7-Zip menu select “Open Archive”

     2) In 7-Zip there is one file same name as the project – Right-Click the file and select EDIT*

Step 2 does not work with your project, either can I simply extract the inner file. Something must have happened to your machine at some point to glitch the file.

[Ann Bens]

Alas project wont open.

[Jake21959928xe7k]

Okay, thanks for looking into it. I wish I knew what specifically was the cause so I could prevent it from happening in the future.

[benk.ma]

Hi ! I have the same issue over here on Premiere Pro Version 25.3.0 (Build 84), on MacOs Sequoia 15.5 and 15.6.
I've had the same issue happening on a project some time ago; none of my backups were readable and were reported as damaged.

The first time, I was thinking of it as a fluke, but today again i lost some of my work...

I've tried to downgrade the version of the recovery files, but it didn't work... still appears as corrupted.

Hope that gets resolved !

[benk.ma]

Quick follow back : 

- Tried installing an older version of PP and it didn't help.

- My project folder is on my internal hard drive, i'm using an NVME as a scratch disk for previews.

I kinda found a solution ( if you are lucky )

My main project file is ~ 54MB, so normally the recovery files are supposed to be equal to the main project file, more than 2/3 of the recovery are way lower ( 37.1 - 3.6 MB ) so basically corrupted.

The only last hope - if you are lucky - is to open the normal sized files.

You can see that i was kinda lucky to have some of them ( selection ) not affected, it seems to be happening at random and at different moment in the day ( Date Created ).

 

Best advice raise the number of versions of recovery files to maybe have more luck.

Hope it get resolved soon ! 

[molly_4005]

This has happened to me on a number of projects lately. I am wondering if it's a Premiere Pro 2025 bug? It's causing a lot of issues and I'm having to restart so many projects.