Premiere project suddenly opens all blank panels

[chrisf16375044]

Panic-inducing moment here.  Working on MacPro mid-2012.  Operating Premiere 2020. 

I was working on a project that I need to share with another editor.  The project is on an external drive.  I'll call it Alpha.  I closed the project and copied the project folder, with all the media inluded, onto another external drive.  I'll call that Beta.  

I ejected the Alpha drive, and then attempted to open the project off the Beta drive.   Premiere opened, but all the panels were blank.  No media in the project, no timelines.  Nothing.  

I ejected the Beta drive and plugged the Alpha drive back in.  I attempted to open the project.  Same thing.  Just empty panels.  

I relaunched Premiere from the Applications menu.  Now, no panels, just the menu bar at the top.  I tried to go to Windows>Workspaces>Editing.  The program froze and I got the message saying a serious error had occurred and Premiere had to shut down.

I trashed my preferences and plug-in cache.  That led me to the Premire opening page that asks if you'd like to open a project (none were listed because I trashed the prefs).  I then attempted to open the project in question.  Same thing.  Serious error.

I then opened an older different project, and that worked just fine.  I closed it.

I then opened Premiere from the application menu and attempted to Import the project in question.  Again, blank panels.

I then plugged the Beta drive into my MacBook Pro (mid-2015) and attempted to open the project.  Again, blank panels.   I trashed the prefs.  Same thing.  Blank panels.

I then figured I would uninstall Premiere on the MacPro.  Did the uninstall.  Unfortunately, I can now no longer install Premiere on my MacPro because I see the NOT COMPATIBLE message.

I then plugged my Alpha Drive into my MacBookPro.  I opened an old project, and it all opened just fine.   I closed that.  I then opened the project in question.  Blank panels.  Can someone please tell me what is going on?  This project was fine until I did the file transfer.  

[chrisf16375044]

Oh, and lastly, I opened a current project and then attempted to Import the project in question.  Premiere asked if I wanted to import the entire project.  I said yes.  Nothing happened.  

I then tried to import again, but this time selected sequences.  Premiere then searched for sequences, but couldn't find any.  The sequence window is just blank.   There should be one in there.  Unless I'm mistaken, this project is completely ruined.  That's distressing. 

[Rag and Bone · Accepted solution]

Have you tried one of the auto backups of the project?

[chrisf16375044]

I had to update my OS on my Mac Pro, and that occupied my comptuer all night.  But yes, that backup did indeed work!  Sadly, I now no longer have Premiere on my main MacPro because of this, but at least the project is intact.  

[chrisf16375044]

Having been now able to open the project from a backup, I see that there's a few files that were in the project that Adobe will no longer link to.  One of them that was successfully playing in Premiere before this all happened is now rejected because "it has a complex edit list."  Maybe that was part of it.

[Rag and Bone]

Search for "complex edit list" on this forum. transcoding the files in another app, or even just changing the extension (!) may help.