Participant

Question

Every Premiere Pro Project File Disappeared

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
October 10, 2022
3 replies
4236 views

I've seen a similar thread from 2017 which is locked, so just raising this as a new issue.

I started using Premiere Pro in 2020. In that time, I've made somewhere around 125 videos. Last week I discovered that every single .prproj file has disappeared from my computer. All of them.

The project files were being saved on my computer's hard drive, whilst the raw footage, assets and exported videos are on an external hard drive (which are still there).

I spent over an hour with Adobe support taking remote control of my computer last week to see if they could find anything, and they directed me to contact Apple support, and after that if Apple couldn't help suggested I get back in touch and the issue would be escalated to their senior engineers.

Just contacted Adobe support again to escalate, and the person I spoke to didn't manage anything more than suggesting I search in spotlight for .prproj files and if they didn't show up then I must have deleted them (which i didn't) and that Premier Pro is not capable of deleting files - which is what I would have assumed had I not read other threads here with other people having faced similar issues.

I use Backblaze for backing up, but unfortunately didn't realise I was on a plan which only keeps files for 30 days, and I didn't access my Adobe folder for almost 3 months, so haven't been able to access a backed up copy - obviously have just increased my plan, but it's too late for the missing project files. I have been able to find and recover prmdc2 files for each project from Backblaze, but I know these won't help much other than giving me a list of the file names of the projects I'm looking for. Seems odd that these ones are there but the project files aren't.

I've also tried Disk Drill to try and scan for missing files but nothing has come up.

Not sure where to go from here, both with trying to recover these files, or with creating new ones - I pay a lot of money for my budget for my Adobe subscription and am about to start a new video project but not sure I trust Premiere Pro!

Error or problem

This topic has been closed for replies.

M

Michael Grenadier

Legend

have you checked your autosave folder?

And done a system wide finder search for .prproj?

I save my projects on a folder locally that's automatically mirrored on dropbox and I keep my autosave folder on my media drive and have it autosave every 5 minutes... So I'm pretty well cov

M

melr33356694Author

Participant

The autosave folder has also gone.

I've searched for the .prproj files, and Apple support tried the search with any 'hidden files' too but still nothing, and also nothing from a data recovery app.

When I opened up Premiere it was as if I have never opened it before - no links to previous projects.

I'm starting a new video project, I've got a folder on my local drive for the time being (it's backed up to Backblaze regularly, and I've just set up Time Machine alongside as a double backup) but will copy the projects to an external drive periodically and save copies of the completed projects there too.

I get issues with playback if the projects are located on an external drive during editing so think I'll have to work locally until they are finished and save copies. Does this sound like it should cover me, or can you see any holes in this backup plan?

Peru Bob

Community Expert

I save copies of my project manually as I am working on it, both to my media drive and backup drive, especially after a complex or lengthy edit. My autosaves are set to every 10 minutes at a maximum of 20 saves before it writes over old autosaves.

I keep my media and project files on external drives on site and external drives off site.

I copy the media to internal drives for use by Premiere Pro.

R Neil Haugen

Legend

Premiere wouldn't have deleted those, it simply doesn't have the ability in it's code. And further, I'd not that on the old issue, it didn't just delete things randomly while not being used, which seems to be your situation.

So like Peru Bob, I am guessing that Backblaze is the issue here.

Neil

Everyone's mileage always varies ...

Peru Bob

Community Expert

A few years ago, there was a bug where project files were deleted under certain circumstances, but that bug was addressed and fixed in the release of the next version.

I haven't since come across any instances of Premiere Pro actually deleting files or folders without user action and approval.

Are you sure that you didn't have Backblaze set to archive, rather than backup?

An archive is a copy of data made for long-term storage and reference. The original data may or may not be deleted from the source system after the archive copy is made and stored, though it is common for the archive to be the only copy of the data.

from here:

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/data-backup-vs-archive/

M

melr33356694Author

Participant

Thanks, appreciate this - my Backblaze it definitely set to back-up, but I may contact them to se if there is any way an unauthorized archive could have wiped files

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