Do you still have a project? Then don't be so impatient
It can take a while to scan the whole project and maybe reindex the database.

Hatti Win 10 64, i7-4790k, 32GB Ram, 256 GB SSD, SATA 2TB, SATA 4TB, NVidia GTX1080 8GB, LG 34" 4K Wide, AOC 24" 1080

Quote Do you still have a project? Then don't be so impatient
It can take a while to scan the whole project and maybe reindex the database.

Hatti

Yup. Still have a project. Patience isn't the issue, but thanks for your input DirectorSuite 365 | Win 11 Home | AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX with Radeon Graphics 3301 Mhz, 8 cores, 16 logical processors | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 | 2TB SSD

Quote Yup. Still have a project. Patience isn't the issue, but thanks for your input

I think Hatti is suggesting that while PhD may look frozen it might actually be busy doing internal processing. Do you think that's what's happening, or is it more of a suddenly the app can't even open situation?

One way to tell would be to try and open a brand new project. Download and extract the empty NewProject project to somewhere you can find it, then open the folder and double click on NewProject.phd and see if PhotoDirector opens normally.

YouTube/optodata

DS365 | Win11 Pro | Ryzen 9 3950X | RTX 4070 Ti | 32GB RAM | 10TB SSDs | 5K+4K HDR monitors

Canon Vixia GX10 (4K 60p) | HF G30 (HD 60p) | Yi Action+ 4K | 360Fly 4K 360°

I downloaded and executed the NewProject.phd. My PHD10 Smart Collection disappeared when I wanted to check something today. There were hundreds of photos that I had worked on previously or is work in progress. I have saved no work as projects in the past. See the attached screenshots.

Yesterday I answered a post in a different PD Users group and posted this Phd10 sample screenshot there to answer a question about importing those sample files. The left side of the screenshot lists hunderds of photos in my smart collection.

I got a message to browse to the sample photo when I opened Phd10 this morning in which the dialog box froze on the screen. Closed and reopened Phd10 by using Windows Start/Cy..Ph..10/Recent/… and gained 1 image that I was working on previously. This is the one and only image in my smart collection now. I do not know enough about PhotoDirector and will refrain from loading posted PhD10 projects in this forum.

Quote

I think Hatti is suggesting that while PhD may look frozen it might actually be busy doing internal processing. Do you think that's what's happening, or is it more of a suddenly the app can't even open situation?

One way to tell would be to try and open a brand new project. Download and extract the empty NewProject project to somewhere you can find it, then open the folder and double click on NewProject.phd and see if PhotoDirector opens normally.

I'm sorry, I should have said that I already waited a very long time for the project to process, that's why I didn't think it was an issue of patience.

I downloaded your NewProject.phd file, and it opened just fine. So....I found my project in explorer and clicked it. Voila! It's working! I have absolutely no idea what happened, or why it's working now. I'm just happy it is working.

Maybe it was your NewProject file LOL

Thanks to Hatti and optodata for your help DirectorSuite 365 | Win 11 Home | AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX with Radeon Graphics 3301 Mhz, 8 cores, 16 logical processors | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 | 2TB SSD

Quote I downloaded and executed the NewProject.phd. My PHD10 Smart Collection disappeared when I wanted to check something today. There were hundreds of photos that I had worked on previously or is work in progress. I have saved no work as projects in the past. See the attached screenshots.

Yesterday I answered a post in a different PD Users group and posted this Phd10 sample screenshot there to answer a question about importing those sample files. The left side of the screenshot lists hunderds of photos in my smart collection.

I got a message to browse to the sample photo when I opened Phd10 this morning in which the dialog box froze on the screen. Closed and reopened Phd10 by using Windows Start/Cy..Ph..10/Recent/… and gained 1 image that I was working on previously. This is the one and only image in my smart collection now. I do not know enough about PhotoDirector and will refrain from loading posted PhD10 projects in this forum.

Tomasc, I am so sorry to hear that! I assure you that there is nothing nefarious in the new project, and I will guarantee you that you would have lost your smart collection if you had opened PhD and chosen File, New Project on your end. That's exactly what I did.

Go to your system's \Pictures\PhotoDirector\10.0\username10.01\ folder and use File Restore on the default PhD project file there, probably named username.phd (right click, Properties, Previous Versions). In my case my system libraries are stored on OneDrive so I had to use the online version history.

After it's restored, double click on that project to launch PhD, and that should do it!

Quote I downloaded your NewProject.phd file, and it opened just fine. So....I found my project in explorer and clicked it. Voila! It's working! I have absolutely no idea what happened, or why it's working now. I'm just happy it is working.

Maybe it was your NewProject file LOL

Thanks to Hatti and optodata for your help

Sounds like somehow PhD got itself into a bad state and couldn't recover, even after restarting. I'm really glad to hear that the new project cleared the issue enough that you could reload the original project and carry on!

YouTube/optodata

DS365 | Win11 Pro | Ryzen 9 3950X | RTX 4070 Ti | 32GB RAM | 10TB SSDs | 5K+4K HDR monitors

Canon Vixia GX10 (4K 60p) | HF G30 (HD 60p) | Yi Action+ 4K | 360Fly 4K 360°

Quote
Sounds like somehow PhD got itself into a bad state and couldn't recover, even after restarting. I'm really glad to hear that the new project cleared the issue enough that you could reload the original project and carry on!

I spoke too soon. It froze again. It's been sitting for about 45 minutes now, and still not working. I was just using it yesterday without any problems, it was responding quickly to my edits and moving around the project.

I submitted a support ticket yesterday, waiting to hear back from them. This has be baffled for sure. I'll post when I hear back from Support. DirectorSuite 365 | Win 11 Home | AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX with Radeon Graphics 3301 Mhz, 8 cores, 16 logical processors | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 | 2TB SSD

Quote I spoke too soon. It froze again. It's been sitting for about 45 minutes now, and still not working. I was just using it yesterday without any problems, it was responding quickly to my edits and moving around the project.

I submitted a support ticket yesterday, waiting to hear back from them. This has be baffled for sure. I'll post when I hear back from Support.

So it's clearly something with that one project. I seem to remember you posted elsewhere regarding a fairly huge number of photos, and if this is that project, you might want to try opening the new project again, then the problem project and see if you can remove at least some folders or some significant amount of photos and save the project again (or as a new name).

YouTube/optodata

DS365 | Win11 Pro | Ryzen 9 3950X | RTX 4070 Ti | 32GB RAM | 10TB SSDs | 5K+4K HDR monitors

Canon Vixia GX10 (4K 60p) | HF G30 (HD 60p) | Yi Action+ 4K | 360Fly 4K 360°

Thank you optodata for your knowledge and response. There are no previous versions of the *.phd file to restore. I started a New Project, saved it, and sure enough the smart collection of 1 image disappeared as you said. Closed PhD10.

Double clicked on the *.phd file and PhD10 opened and the 500+ photos in my smart collection reappeared. See the screenshot. The last import from yesterday showed up on the screen. This appear to be the way to restore a smart collection. Starting a New project and saving it removes the smart collection and opening that one phd file brings it back. Good to know.

Glad that your extensive knowledge helps others. Appreciate your help and will try to find this information in the UG later if it exists. All is well. Thank you again.

P.S. Just found out the New Project I created a few minutes ago to do the test defaulted to a GoPro subfolder. I need to read the UG should I start to save projects instead of using the smart collection to see how all this works.

Quote ...
Glad that your extensive knowledge helps others. Appreciate your help and will try to find this information in the UG later if it exists. All is well. Thank you again.

P.S. Just found out the New Project I created a few minutes ago to do the test defaulted to a GoPro subfolder. I need to read the UG should I start to save projects instead of using the smart collection to see how all this works.

Whew! Like you, I often only open PhD occasionally and don't usually save anything, but I did save one project a month or so ago. It seems like the default *.phd project was created the first time I opened PhD 10, and that's what I was able to restore from. Very glad you found and posted the way you were able to restore your collection

YouTube/optodata

DS365 | Win11 Pro | Ryzen 9 3950X | RTX 4070 Ti | 32GB RAM | 10TB SSDs | 5K+4K HDR monitors

Canon Vixia GX10 (4K 60p) | HF G30 (HD 60p) | Yi Action+ 4K | 360Fly 4K 360°