Timeline completely disappeared

[ashestoashers]

Newbie here. Had loads of seperate clips in the project panel and edited them all down in the time line - so ended up with around 40 snippets all sequenced on the timeline. Saved, saved and saved again, closed and then restarted machine.

When I started Premiere Pro up again and opened project the timeline had totally gone! All the original clips are still in the project panel but none of the edits.

I've looked at all the auto-saves and they only open the clips in the Project panel - no sequences on the timeline. I've tried resetting the workspace as well.

Anyone know where it's gone? I've obviously done something very wrong. Can anyone save my day?

[Ann Bens]

First of all make a habit of making a Save a Copy to another drive.

Have you searched for the sequence in the Project Panel.

Show screenshot entire UI with Project Panel and timeline.

[ashestoashers]

Hi - thanks for replying.

Screenshot attached - the first shows about 30 of the files, the second shows the remainder...

[Ann Bens]

I see a STfl1.project. Is there a STfl.project (without the 1)?

[ashestoashers]

No - that’s it. The first of a projected series.

[Ann Bens]

If you do not have a backup and the auto saves are the same without a sequence, then I am afraid you need to start over.

[RobShultz]

Are you seeing a sequence in your project panel? Easier to tell if you're in  list view. It would be the  green/blue bars. If so try double clicking on the sequence to see if it re-opens the timeline.

[Ann Bens]

There is no sequence (see screenshots).

[ashestoashers · Accepted solution]

Hi all,

thanks for all your replies.

The answer seems to be unfortunately simple - you must save your workings from the timeline into a sequence or they will be lost.

Sounds obvious and probably foolish to y'all but for someone who's used the graphic apps of Adobe for over 30 years (how did THAT happen?!) I expected that when you save, nothing would be lost.

However I now appreciate that there's a totally different paradigm with regard to workspace with Premiere - possibly a difference that should be written in big red bold letters at the beginning of the first tutorial. (I did actually watch a couple of quick tutorials before I got on to the urgent job at hand but somehow that basic lesson did not get impressed upon me.)

How dare I think I could just jump in and dabble!!

Feel free to tell me I've got this wrong, in the meantime I'm marking this comment as the correct answer - the slightest silver lining of this dark time.

[Ann Bens]

The answer seems to be unfortunately simple - you must save your workings from the timeline into a sequence or they will be lost.

By @ashestoashers

A sequence which sits on the timeline resides within the Project, so you need to make backups from your Project.

FAQ: When to use "Save A Copy," or "Save As," or just "Save".

Just relying on Save and auto save is not enough.