It would help if you could post a screenshot of what your timeline looks like with the missing #1 track. I'm also not clear on what you're calling "tabs," but they aren't related to autosaves. Are you using Nested Projects? Are any of your clips stored on removable drives?

You can set the autosave folder and frequency of saves from the Preferences > Project screen. If you want to quickly go to the default folder, select the entire current folder name in the box to the left of the Browse button and copy it, then open File Explorer. Paste the folder path in the main box above the drives to see the folder's contents.

You'll have to keep going back through the autosaved versions until you find one that opens all the way. You may want to turn off shadow files if you've got them enabled. That may allow you to open up more project versions.

Quote It would help if you could post a screenshot of what your timeline looks like with the missing #1 track. I'm also not clear on what you're calling "tabs," but they aren't related to autosaves. Are you using Nested Projects? Are any of your clips stored on removable drives?

You can set the autosave folder and frequency of saves from the Preferences > Project screen. If you want to quickly go to the default folder, select the entire current folder name in the box to the left of the Browse button and copy it, then open File Explorer. Paste the folder path in the main box above the drives to see the folder's contents.

You'll have to keep going back through the autosaved versions until you find one that opens all the way. You may want to turn off shadow files if you've got them enabled. That may allow you to open up more project versions.

Thanks for the speedy reply,

As you can see in the attached pics:

Pic #1. The "tabs" I refer to run along the top of the timline box. Every time I open the project to work on it if I hit save the "Save As" box opens rather than just overwriting the file. So, I simply resave over the original file but it creates another tab. The editable tab is furthest right.

The red circle on the timeline indicates where the missing #1 vid track was and ought to be but is now gone. The project I'm working is the circled one above and its thumbnail shows.

Pic #2. Shows the next tab to the left. As you can see, it shows as a .pds on the timeline but is not editable. If I double-click on it the program freezes. None of the all menu editing options are grayed out. There are 14 of these tabs altogether at this point.


None of the autosave files will open. I shut off shadow files as you suggested and have my autosave set at 10mins with temp file deletion at 3 days. I run single previews at High, Normal or Low res and otherwise keep overhead down as my rig is a little dated. I disable any tracks I'm not working on or don't need to see or hear at the time. I keep all other programs closed while I work, especially graphics.

My rig:

Win 10 Pro-64: Build 1909
Intel Core2 Quad 9650 @3ghz
8gb DDR3 at 1333
Nvidia GTS 450 w/ 1gb GDDR5
SB X-Fi audio

I run it lean and know what it can do and don't overtax it. I built it 10 years ago and it's held up remarkably well. Will build another later this year.

Thanks again.

Mark

Well, I've been using PD since 2009 and I have never seen a timeline or behavior like you're describing. Those tabs look like nested projects, and the only thing I can think of is that something very unusual is going on - like you've been saving projects to nested projects within your projects. It's some sort of circular dependency.

It's all very convoluted and completely abnormal, and the best thing I can offer you as a forum volunteer and fellow user is to try and help decode your project and recover as much of the original editing as possible.

If you're comfortable sharing your media clips, go to File > Pack Project Materials and save everything to a folder on OneDrive or Google Drive and paste a shareable link to it here.

It would also help to see the technical details of your system, so please run the DxDiag test as shown in the Read Me Before Posting sticky thread and attach the results here or in the packed project's cloud folder.

There's still a chance that your project has been corrupted beyond recovery, but I think working with it directly will at least give us a fighting chance...

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 It would help if you could post a screenshot of what your timeline looks like with the missing #1 track. I'm also not clear on what you're calling "tabs," but they aren't related to autosaves. Are you using Nested Projects? Are any of your clips stored on removable drives?

You can set the autosave folder and frequency of saves from the Preferences > Project screen. If you want to quickly go to the default folder, select the entire current folder name in the box to the left of the Browse button and copy it, then open File Explorer. Paste the folder path in the main box above the drives to see the folder's contents.

You'll have to keep going back through the autosaved versions until you find one that opens all the way. You may want to turn off shadow files if you've got them enabled. That may allow you to open up more project versions.

Hello,

Just wanted to let you know for future reference I couldn't correct all the issues with the existing project no matter what I tried. So I did the easiest and timeless fix of all I simply couldn't think of in my mania to run down the problem:

1. Shut off shadow files and made all settings as simple as possible. Closed and reopened program.


2. Simply dragged a selecton box over all elements in the timeline and copied/pasted them into a New Workspace/Project.


3. PD imported all related media, etc and retained all effects and elements.


4. Saved with new file name.

Everything worked perfectly, it saved perfectly with no tabs adding every time I reopen it. Further, I forgot to mention it was also adding monster temp files (for the shadow files I presume) and crashing periodically which it's no longer doing as well.

It runs faster, smoother with no hiccups or crashes, no monster temp files and I see no difference whatever in display or timeline qualities with the shadow files off.

I've said for 30 years there is always a workaround but sometimes overlook the easy one right under my nose.

Thanks again.