PANIC Mode .... need expert advise on recovering file

I’m in absolute panic mode right now. My master blend file of a large project all of a sudden cant be opened. I’ve got hundreds of hours into this project and really need expert advise to aid me in attempting to recover. The file is way to large to post but here is the message I am getting.


Its saying failed to read, than names the file path and ends with … incomplete.

  1. I’ve tried to open it a number of times getting same message. I’m using 2.75a. I was using the file last night, rendered overnight an image. Closed the program and opened up a different blend file.

  2. I tried to open a default scene and see if I could append anything … I can not.

  3. I have had bad luck in the past trying to recover files … so I really need some step by step expert advice on how to try and recover an older version.

Please help, most importantly with some step by step instructions to find and open an older version of this file. Thank you in advance.

Don’t you have a “geffin_suite2.75.blend1” file next to your main file?
That’s the last version of your project before your very last save. Just rename the file to “geffin_suite2.75.blend” (by deleting the last “1”, obviously) and you should have a perfectly fine halfway recent version of your file.

if u also have autosave by default
then there should be a file in a temp file for blender !

in file menu there is also a recover item to help

happy bl

A couple of followup questions … first off I do have a blend1 file


This is a screen grab from when I went into windows explorer and searched for the file. I’m a little encouraged because there is a very slight difference in file size Here are my questions…

I assume I should change the file extension name within windows explorer ( I’m using windows 7 64 bit) . I figured out how to access the file type extensions, which will allow me to rename the file correctly.

  1. Since I am essentially going to be renaming it to exactly the same name as the original file … I will probably get some message that asks me overright … Would it be better for me to first remove the original (corrupted file to new area… BEFORE renaming the backup file?

  2. So once that is done, I should open up blender … than do a file open … find the new renamed file and open that?

I’ll hold off doing anything until I get some confirmation.

keep you old file same so change name for the blend1 file rename just in case

now you could also try to open a new file and append everything from old bad file
might work

did u check if you have some temp file saved ?

assume here you cannot open file at all !
I got a script to check forb ad meshes inside file

happy bl

Copy all folder to different place. If there is a bad HD sector around windows will throw an error message.

In User Preferences - File, there is a path where blender keeps temporary stuff. Each autosave file is kept there and is named [5 digits].blend . See if there is similar size and close dated amongst others - try opening.

In order to load .blend1 untick Filter option in Blender’s file manager so that Blender shows all files in folder.

Keep habit of backing up stuff ;).

now you could also try to open a new file and append everything from old bad file
might work

I tried that Ricky with no luck … when I tried appending as soon as I selected the original file… it just disappeared and left a similar message as noted above on the counsel.

I checked all my temp folders and there is nothing in them … regarding this file.

did u try to recover file from file menu ?

happy bl

is file is not too big can u upload so we can test it may be !

happy bl

@eppo I did find the temporary file … it was buried in a hidden file in windows 7 . Take a look at this screen grab. This is in the temp. folder. While they do have these 5 digit numbers files… I couldn’t find one that I thought was the main file. But there is actually a file named exactly what my original blend file was named.

-Should I try and open that one instead of these numbered files.?

-If so, should I leave it in the temp folder and just try and open it there using blender?


try to open it up but don’t save it

if it is good then make a copy of that one with another name may be
in case you still need that one too!

happy bl

@eppo I did find the temporary file … it was buried in a hidden file in windows 7 . Take a look at this screen grab. This is in the temp. folder. While they do have these 5 digit numbers files… I couldn’t find one that I thought was the main file. But there is actually a file named exactly what my original blend file was named.

-Should I try and open that one instead of these numbered files.?

-If so, should I leave it in the temp folder and just try and open it there using blender?

[ATTACH=CONFIG]391319[/ATTACH]

Sort them by date created and look at file sizes. If date and size are about the same that could be file you worked on before crash.

Copy file last in the list under different name and see what’s inside.

If there are no numbered files matching size, date in temp folder, if this one correctly named does not open and if .blend1 from the original folder does not work - :(…
There is description of blend file structure and recipe how they could be read but that takes a lot of programming, trial and error. On top of that file is quite ‘fat’ (which might be good, actually).

SUCCESS!!! Well I took a chance and opened the file in temporary (see last file on list above) and it opened it. I immediately did a file save as… and renamed it and saved it in a new place. Hopefully it was just a glitch. I do full backups of my entire harddrive quite regularly, but it has been about a week and I would have lost a whole lot of hard work on the salon area.

Thanks to Ricky Blender, Eppo, and Ikarishinji for all your help…whew, breathing a big sigh of relief :slight_smile:

always save your files regularly even with default save option
and change name with number save like name1 then name2 ect…

at least you don’t loose everything if there is a crash

and yes backup around ounce a week on outside HD
is always a good idea but you still loose only a few days of work max

happy bl

Now, take a fresh flashdrive and - Save All ;).

Glad you got it back! Now take eppos advice and save a packed version onto a $3 flashdrive, or dropbox.

Hey guys… even though I marked this solved, it turns out it really wasn’t… but now it is. Let me explain

I mentioned that I opened that file found in the hidden temp file… I just opened it up and everything came back. I immediately saved it under a different name somewhere else on my HD. All the objects showed up in the viewport just as always have… I thought I was golden… until I looked a little closer…

Every single texture ( and I’m talking hundreds of them) suddenly were pink when I went to render. I immediately opened up the materials tab and started looking at objects materials… they were all there, but all the little thumbnails were pink. I then went into the compositor and checked some node setups that used images … they were still in the image texture node.

So I went back instead… found that blend1 file, renamed it and changed the extension to just .blend , and opened it up in blender and all my textures and materials were back again.

So the big question, I guess, is why did this temp file lose all the material connections. I’m not sure what would have happened if I had just opened up the temp file and checked the materials at that point. But I immediately did a save as, renamed it, and saved it in another location.

So I just wanted to mention this in case someone in the future goes googling for solutions to a similar problem… beware of the temp files I guess :slight_smile:

Absolute and relative paths to texture files seem to be the cause. If images are in say C:\MyDocs\Project extures\ and Blender saved file 12345.blend in C:\Windows emp relative path would be like …\MyDocs\Project extures. If blend file is saved somewhere else this type (relative) of path does not fit anymore. What you could do is to use FindMissingStuff and point to the right texture folder.
If this was absolute - C:\MyDocs\Project extures\ there would not be problems while this is the same PC. If you move file to different pc you’d have to make sure path to textures is absolutely the same which could be problematic…