PLEASE HELP.
I JUST LOST 36 hrs of progress on a storyboard.
True, it was just low-grade sketches to give me an idea of what to draw but it’s a few dozen frames.
I tried to open the save file after converting to zip. I could find the frames in the xml code but in the actual data folder the pngs were nowhere to be seen.
@RoosterMaind Hi. Hmm unfortunately if you opened the project as a zip file and the images aren’t there, there is little we can do to recover the work. In these cases we always suggest prevention methods like having multiple backup copies.
If by any chance your Pencil2D crashed there might still be hope though, please try to take a look at this guide Pencil2D Project File Corruption Prevention / Partial Recovery Guide and if you’re using Windows go to the temporary files folder / Pencil2D / and look for the folder that has a name similar to your saved file, inside you should be able to find most images that were dumped the last time it was opened. There are ways of getting the same result on MAC on Linux but you need to be more savvy with those OS.
If you say you lost the images without a crash that is unfortunately non-recoverable. You could try the last step on the guide which is a suggestion on using a recovery software to try to get the temp files back.
You can also try to share the corrupted file so we can take a look, but if the corruption happened due to an interruption in the saving procedure then the problem is that the first frames would have been lost since Pencil2D saves from the last frame towards the first, so if there’s a problem the first ones are usually always lost in the process.
Since you mentioned that the XML was intact then it’s even more weird because 100% of the time file corruption happens the xml is lost… Tell me, are you using the latest version of Pencil2D 0.6.4? if you’re not, that is itself a problem because older versions are more prone to corrupting files, and we had a painstakingly difficult process to try to weed out as many errors as we could, it’s still not perfect but it’s much more stable, so please try to use the latest version when possible.
Using 0.6.4
Oddly enough, te only frames I have left are the very first one and a few at the end, but nothing in between.
My audio also dissappeared, but that’s no issue, it was jut a guide.
Will try the recovery method and let you know. Would Recuva work for recovering temp files?
@RoosterMaind Hi. That is very weird indeed. We’ve never have been reported a similar problem, usually what disappears is the xml and just a few of the first images.
As for recuva, well to be completely honest I only used it once. I think it managed to find some of my lost stuff but not all of what was lost (it was a formatted hard drive though). I haven’t used it since, so I’m not sure how it’s faring nowadays but It should be safe to use it. Of course as with any tech software you should use it with proper caution so you don’t end up doing more harm than good, but the tutorial and manual should help there.
Okay, I got some of the missing frames’ PNGs, but instead of my frames, they are random images my browser loaded. YOutube video thumbnails, images from online articles etc.
@RoosterMaind Sorry to hear that. Then that’s about as far as we can take this I’m afraid. Normally recovery should be done isolating the hard drive so no other file can rewrite the information on the disk sector. But this is in practice very hard to do if you’re a normal user since browsers are overwriting files all the time and just by normally using the pc the hard drive is working like crazy.
Anyway. If you’re going to start over, try out a different program from this list. https://pencil2d-software.tumblr.com/post/184584013311/alternative-desktop-animation-software-pencil2d
You might get more robust software with added stability meanwhile we figure out what exactly can cause such an issue.
Just in case can you please send us the corrupted file? You can upload it on this link and it will be private and visible only for developers if you don’t tick the checkbox that says “make my work public” this way we’ll be able to at least inspect the file and hopefully find where it could have gone wrong https://www.pencil2d.org/contribute/share.html
Ok, I think I shared the files.
THe progress bar is full, although the pages didn’t reload or redirect me
@RoosterMaind It’s alright. If we can’t see them after tomorrow I’ll write again. Otherwise thanks for helping out and I wish you good luck with your project. Just in case and even if you don’t continue to use Pencil2D, make sure you make a ton of backup copies. I’ve lost work like this with commercial software on deadlines and often time you end up having to redo all the work, it’s an unfortunate side effect of technology and it hurts more when you’re paying money and the support team don’t help at all 