Yesterday I was working in Stage (version 10). Before going to sleep, I save the file, close the program and turn off my laptop. Today in the morning I open the file, only to see that all my layers are gone, and that it is empty. The only thing it saved was my color palette. However, if I go to the elements folder, I see that every layer still has its folder, each with its own .tvg file (almost all of them weighing 1 KB, just one of them weighing 2 KB). What happened? Can I recover the file? This is important because my project is due tomorrow.
How did you reopen the project?
Did you navigate to a file or did it appear in your recent list and you chose it from there?
First I opened Stage and the project appeared in my recent list. Then, after seeing it was empty, I opened it from File > Open Recent. Then I tried opening it from the folder. And now I tried going to File > Open and then selecting the file. Every time with the same result.
You could try this experiment. This works if there is a backup file in the project folder. First check to see whether you have a backup copy inside your project folder. You should see the stage file and another file that closely resembles it except it has a Tilda ~ at the end. This is a backup copy. If you have a file with the Tilda ~ proceed with the following steps.
If this does not lead to better results you have not risked anything and will still have the original file folder intact.
- Make a copy of the project folder and its contents. Just name the folder “copy of project”
- Open the folder of “copy of project”.
- Delete the stage file.
- Remove the Tilda ~ from the other file. This now makes the backup file the main working file.
- Right-click on this new main file and open the software.
You may see the same results or you may see a saved version of the project that could be absent of the final changes you made to the project before you closed the software the last time you worked on the project.
3a. delete the .aux file
4a. remove the tilde “~” from the [projectname].aux~ file
the .xstage and .aux files go together
I know this was from years ago but I wanted to update for anyone else experiencing this issue. I ran into the same thing at it was horrifying! The solution is to go into your project folder and under elements check to see if you have folders in there. If you do you should be able to go into them and see files under the extension “.tvg.” This is where your layers are stored, and each file in these folders is for the individual frames. You will need to go into your program, under the File tab click Import > Images… Once the import window pops up, go into your project file, go into the elements folder, and manually go through each layer. It saves each version of your layers so you might need to sift through it for a bit depending on the amount of layers you have. You can select multiple files at a time, so just select all of the .tvg files in the layer folder and then click ok. Your layers should be re-imported back in if all goes well. The only bad part about this is that it doesn’t save keyframes and breakdowns so you’ll need to recheck those if necessary. Hope this helps anyone facing the same nightmare that I did!
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