Team projects won't open - no help from Adobe support

[geofft18728260]

I currently have 24 team projects that are not accessible. They are all from before October 4th, 2017. The team projects created beyond that date are fine, and any team project I create now will open fine. If I try to open one of the affected team projects, it brings up the small window that says "Loading Team Project" and gives the elapsed time and a progress bar (as it normally would). However, I've waited hours before and the window will just hang and never open the project - even with small project files that would typically open in a couple seconds or less. I created most of the team projects, but a colleague created others. Neither of us are able to access the same 24 projects.

I've been on and off the phone with Adobe customer support the whole time. My case is still open and has been escalated, but on four separate occasions they've promised me a return call from the "senior team", and on all four occasions, the window in which they said they would call passed, and I was forced to call back and repeat the process. This has been going on for the last month so I'm getting really frustrated on that front.

What gets me though, I've received contradictory information from different members of the support staff regarding where the project files are physically stored. I have been told the base project file will be stored on the creator of the team projects machine, however another person told me that they are on the Adobe Cloud and nowhere else. I've been told that there are backups of every team project uploaded to the cloud, however I've also been told that you need to make a copy of the team project as a standard project and backup locally (which is stupid and defeats part of the appeal of a shared team project).

We've tried all the troubleshooting steps given by the support staff. Including; trying to open from 2017 version, re-installing both 2017 and 2018 versions, logging in and out of Creative Cloud, etc. They have done the screen control thing three times and viewed log files and other things but obviously nothing worked to fix the issue.

I have a client that is rebranding, and they've asked us to replace their old branding in all the videos we've done for them, so having these project files is a necessity. Of course we still have all the footage stored and backed up locally, but recreating the projects would be insanely time consuming, and something I couldn't charge my client for.

I'm at a loss at this point. Any help or direction would be greatly appreciated!

[Ann Bens]

Pinging Kevin-Monahan

[John T Smith]

Moving to Team Projects forum

[Vinay Dwivedi]

Hi Geoff,

Please check the below link and check if you are able to recover the projects.

Make sure you read all the FAQ's before running the tool.

https://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/Steps-to-recover-Team-Projects-BETA.html

//Vinay

[geofft18728260]

Hi Vinay,

Thanks for the response but unfortunately this didn't work. We went through the project recovery tool with a support member already and the only projects recovered were the ones that aren't effected. I just tried again based on your response and same thing happened.

[Vinay Dwivedi]

Hi Geoff,

Sorry to hear that but have you tried to run the tool on the same machine where the Team Projects were last accessed?

It will work only if you are trying on the same machine that was last used.

//Vinay

[geofft18728260]

Hi Vinay,

Yes we ran the recovery tool on the computer used to create the projects.

[PeterELee]

Hi Goeff,

To clarify how data is stored in Team Projects:

1. When you create a Team Project, a database is created on the workstation where you create it. All of your edits are written to that local database (as "auto-saves"). When you are connected to the cloud, your local database is backed up to the cloud. Your local database contains all of the auto-saves that were created on that workstation using that Mac or Windows account.

2. The first time you open an existing Team Project on a workstation, the current state of the database from the cloud is copied to that workstation, and is updated on that workstation moving forward, and synced to the cloud as well. This is also what would happen if you opened a Team Project after deleting your local database.

3. The local databases for every Team Project you have opened on a given workstation are stored (off the top of my head) in "~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Common/Team Projects Local Hub" (Mac), and "%APPDATA%\Adobe\Common\Team Projects Local Hub" (Windows).

In November, the cloud-based data for Team Projects that were created with the Team Projects Beta releases and had not been accessed since early October was deleted. It sounds like your Team Projects fall into that category, unfortunately. If you have access to a workstation where one of these Team Projects was created or edited, and the local database is still intact, the recovery tool will create a new Team Project using the auto-save data from that local database. If you have multiple accounts on the workstation, you will need to log in using an account that accessed the Team Project before October 7th. You will also need to be logged into Creative Cloud using the same login ID.

Best Regards,

-Peter

[geofft18728260]

Peter,

That definitely helps me understand the storage situation, thanks for that.

In November, the cloud-based data for Team Projects that were created with the Team Projects Beta releases and had not been accessed since early October was deleted. It sounds like your Team Projects fall into that category, unfortunately.

Why were those project files deleted simply because they hadn't been accessed? And why were users not informed of this before it occurred in order to back them up?

If you have access to a workstation where one of these Team Projects was created or edited, and the local database is still intact, the recovery tool will create a new Team Project using the auto-save data from that local database.

Indeed I do have access to the workstation that created the team projects, which is where we ran the recovery tool, however it didn't recover the effected project files.

If you have multiple accounts on the workstation, you will need to log in using an account that accessed the Team Project before October 7th. You will also need to be logged into Creative Cloud using the same login ID.

I've only ever used one account and Creative Cloud ID on the workstation where the projects were created.

I have brought this up with one of the support staff when he was controlling my screen, but didn't seem to get anywhere but thought I would mention it here as well after reading your description of the team project storage database. A few months ago I called Adobe support with another unrelated issue that the support member was able to resolve. Im not 100% sure, but if I recall correctly, what he did was copied "~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Common", and then renamed it common.old. In my "~Library/Application Support" and possibly in my documents folder exists both "Adobe", "Adobe.old", and "common", "common.old". I may be way off base here but could it have anything to do with the fact that Premiere Pro may be searching the wrong folders to locate the database?

[PeterELee]

Hi Geoff,

Just to clarify -- when you ran the recovery tool, were you logged in with the same Mac or Windows login and the same Creative Cloud ID as when the original Team Project was created? The database files are stored under the Mac or Windows user directory, and contain references to the Creative Cloud ID of the user as well.

If so, could anything have caused the user directory or local database to have been deleted since the Team Projects were last modified?

-Peter

[geofft18728260]

when you ran the recovery tool, were you logged in with the same Mac or Windows login and the same Creative Cloud ID as when the original Team Project was created?

Yes, there's only one user on the machine, and I've only been logged into a single CC user ID.

could anything have caused the user directory or local database to have been deleted since the Team Projects were last modified?

No.

[PeterELee · Accepted solution]

Geoff,

• !I have brought this up with one of the support staff when he was controlling my screen, but didn't seem to get anywhere but thought I would mention it here as well after reading your description of the team project storage database. A few months ago I called Adobe support with another unrelated issue that the support member was able to resolve. Im not 100% sure, but if I recall correctly, what he did was copied "~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Common", and then renamed it common.old. In my "~Library/Application Support" and possibly in my documents folder exists both "Adobe", "Adobe.old", and "common", "common.old". I may be way off base here but could it have anything to do with the fact that Premiere Pro may be searching the wrong folders to locate the database?

This is exciting to hear! There's a very good chance that your original auto-saves are still in one or both of the ".old" directories. I would try something like this:

1. Quit any running Adobe applications.

2. Rename your current ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Common directory to something else, like "Common.newer".

3. Look at the modification dates of "Adobe.old" and "Common.old" in the Finder. If Common.old is older, make a copy of it and rename the copy as just "Common". If Adobe.old is older, copy the Common directory from there to your current Application Support/Adobe folder (I assume it's already just named "Common").

4. Follow the steps to run the recovery tool. If all is good in the universe, the auto-saves will be in that restored Common folder and the recovery tool will be able to find them.

-Peter

[geofft18728260]

OK I will try this. Perhaps there is light at the end of the tunnel! Thanks, I'll report back.

[geofft18728260]

OK so common.old was last modified Dec. 20th 2017, and Adobe.old last modified Sept. 25th 2017. So I am copying the common folder inside Adobe.old to the current Adobe folder where I renamed the existing common folder common.newer - It's almost 100gb so it's taking some time. When it does copy do I need to rename common.old to just common before I run the recovery tool?

[christiane4686395]

Yes. The path to your data must be ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Common/Team Projects Local Hub. Inside that folder you will see a number of subfolders with a tp2 extension. Please confirm that this is the case, and then run the recovery tool.

[geofft18728260]

The path to your data must be ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Common/Team Projects Local Hub. Inside that folder you will see a number of subfolders with a tp2 extension.

Yes there are about 30 subfolders with the tp2 extension. Still copying now - about 20 minutes left.

[geofft18728260]

I guess finder is bad at estimating time to copy. It still says about 20 minutes about an hour later. But it's at 68gb of 87gb and ticking so almost there.

[geofft18728260]

Jumpin' Jesus it worked! The recovery tool retrieved all the projects I wasn't able to open.

PeterELee, christiane4686395, and Vinay Dwivedi - dammit Adobe give all these people a raise!

I can't thank you guys enough! I only wish the phone support staff were nearly as competent and helpful as you - this issue could have been resolved a month ago had I only posted it here first off! Hindsight is 20/20

Lastly though, the team projects that were not affected that now exist in the common.newer folder, am I able to copy everything inside of there and paste in the resolved common folder?

[christiane4686395]

Glad to hear it! What a relief.

Please do not manipulate the tp2 folders manually — this could create real problems. Let's continue this conversation via DM where we can decide what to do next.

[Vinay Dwivedi]

That’s great. Thanks everyone for the help and above all thanks Geoff for your patience while performing the steps to resolve your issue.

Sincere apologies for your past experience.

//Vinay

[PeterELee]

Very glad to hear it worked out in the end, and sorry the issue took so long to resolve. I'll defer to Christian on how to handle the tp2 folders. He's the expert there.

-Peter