How to recover from an empty scene

[Anonymous]

This is a student project. I saved my file every time when I made some big changes. I saved the file again right before I close the project. Then I opened it up again just to see whether it was successfully saved, but what I got is a completely empty scene. The modified history seems right to me, but there is nothing in the scene. I saw the other post and it suggested to replace all the "nan" with "0". But it doesn't work. Please help!

[sean.heasley]

Hi @Anonymous 

Unfortunately it looks like the data in this file is lost as I open it and it's just completely blank.

For future reference its always worth saving files in increments and deleting history or unnecessary nodes/objects from the scene as you work to prevent issues like this from occurring.

[mspeer · Accepted solution]

Hi!

@Anonymous  and @sean.heasley 

Recovered scene attached.

Edited by
Discussion_Admin

[sean.heasley]

Oh wow awesome job @mspeer !

What did you do/change to recover the file?

[Anonymous]

Wow, I can't thank you enough. I'd also like to know how you solved it so I could fix it myself if the same problem occurred again.

[damaggio]

No answer from mspeer?

[Anonymous]

Hi guys, I'm having the exact same problem while saving in .ma, I've been working on an animation for a while now ( I'm up to version 167) but any new version I save now opens up as an empty scene. File size is as it should be. Any idea how I can fix this? I use incremental save as well as auto save but even those files open empty.

[damaggio]

We don't have your scene file.

[Anonymous]

Hey thanks for the reply. I can attach the file. However, everything in the file is currently referenced. Do you need the references as well?

[RNJ]

Hi ,y name is Raul and I'm having same issues i opened up my scene and there is nothing there. I don't know how to recover it. please help

[Anonymous]

Hi i'm having the same problem in my file. Just saw the code and the ref and the keyframes but in Maya the scene shows up as empty.

If anyone could help it would be really great,

Regards

[Anonymous]

this is my scene i workedon it 4 to 5 days i finaly finished it and saved it . i opened it again in about 8 or 9 hours and there wasnt anything in it the file size is bigger then that of a new empty file but smaller then the original size of the file also the outliner is empty the last thing i did before i save on the existing file i wen to hypershade and i deleted all the unused shaders and saved it again. that made a new file in my existing file where the project  was swatches i am a student and i need this project for a grade can somebody please help me thank you 😄 

[mspeer]

Hi!

Sorry, but this file does not contain any data that can be recovered.

If you don't have any backup or a previous version of the scene you have to start from scratch.

To prevent data loss like this:
1. Do incremental saves (as often as suitable) and from time to time save or export in an additional format (like FBX or OBJ).
2. Delete history if not needed anymore (on individual or all objects).
3. Create backups.

[Anonymous]

okaay i thought soo too but thank you very much for saying this i wanted to make sure now i can start doing the file have a nice day 😄 

[Anonymous]

I was working on a scene and saved it, but I tried to save it to my onedrive account, and the file was blank. It was still open in maya, but when I tried to pull it up, maya closed. I'd been saving it to the desktop and deleting history as I went, but it's blank on the desktop as well. Any chance you could check my file and see if you could recover something?

Oh, well it won't even attach to the reply.

[mspeer]

Hi!

ZIP it before upload.

[Anonymous]

Okay, here it is

[mspeer]

Hi!

Sorry, this file is completely empty, there is nothing that can be recovered.

[Anonymous]

Alright, thanks for trying