Power went out and now every project I created is deleted

I've been editing a lot of videos in the past 4 days. The power went out today in the middle of a rendering. When it came back on and I turned my computer back on every single project I've been working on is completely gone. Not in the projects folder either (AppData\Roaming\Blackmagic Design\DaVinci Resolve\Support\Resolve Disk Database\Resolve Projects\Users\guest\Projects)

How is this even possible?

I can't emphasize enough how HUGE of a MAJOR bug this is. When the power went out I was thinking "Crap, it probably hasn't saved any of the work I've done in the last 15 minutes". But the fact that everything is completely deleted somehow from the past 4 days... makes me so so so so angry.

Why would you ever design a software where that was even a remote possibility? This has never happened with adobe software in the 20+ years I've worked with it because it works with save files and not some kind of bizarre "project database" which may or may not keep any of the work you've done over the last couple days.

Any thoughts? Or am I just out of luck?

I'm on Resolve 17.

There's actually a new forum for version 17 issues.

viewforum.php?f=36

On it's face, it doesn't seem possible, unless somehow the disk was corrupted. First of all, just to be sure, search the disk for "project.db". You say "even" above, so where else were you looking? I assume the project manager comes up empty?

It's useless now, but the value of having backups on other disks should be apparent.

On it's face, it doesn't seem possible, unless somehow the disk was corrupted. First of all, just to be sure, search the disk for "project.db". You say "even" above, so where else were you looking? I assume the project manager comes up empty?

It's useless now, but the value of having backups on other disks should be apparent.

As far as I can tell there is no disk corruption. Everything else seems to be working fine.

No, the project manager does not come up empty. It has all the projects that I've worked on previously that weren't created within the last 4 days.

That's definitely not normal.

Are other files from the machine missing, or just these?

Is the database actually there, just empty?

That's definitely not normal.

Are other files from the machine missing, or just these?

Is the database actually there, just empty?

The database is still there. It just missing any/all projects from the last 4 days.

I'd made a couple quick links on my menu bar as shortcuts to access certain projects. Those seem to be gone (maybe because I hadn't restarted my computer since I made them?) but nothing else seems to be damaged, missing or out of place.

Hi Evan,


A few suggestions to avoid future chaos.

1-Purchase and install a UPS (uninterruptible power supply) for your computer workstation. In the event of a power outage your computer and display monitor will continue to operate from the battery in the UPS for a predetermined amount of time which should be enough for you to backup the database and project file to an external location.

2- On a daily basis always backup the entire database to a secondary location as well as exporting the individual project files to an external folder. I do this as part of my daily editorial workflow practice. It is a fail safe method to insure recovery of either the database or individual project if needed.

I have discovered strange database behavior with Resolve 17 beta but since I consider this to be beta software I can't complain as we have already been warned BETA software is not to be used for commercial productions.

I did discover a workaround when you cannot see the individual projects in the original Resolve 17 database.

A- first create a backup copy of the existing Resolve 17 database folder which is located at the default location on your computer. Move this backup copy to another location . If the database contains mission critical projects consider creating a 2nd database backup copy and store that offline.

B- Launch Resolve and Reimport the Resolve 17 database, rename it once it imports and choose a new location to store it. Then right click on the original database and select disconnect.

C- Click on the newly imported Resolve 17 database and the individual projects should appear. If not close Resolve, reboot and then check if the project appear.

I agree with Tony. I've had my computers on a UPS for over 30 years now and would never be without one. It has saved my bacon on many occasions.

Make sure you get a decent one if you can afford it. My Siemens 1KVA UPS has been quietly whirring away under my desk for three decades with the only maintenance being the replacement of its batteries every 5 years or so. I think it cost me only about $600 (1990 dollars) and that represents very few hours of my time in terms of cost.

I have not had to use ms-win for a long time, but I remember using tools to recover the FAT from additional copies that are kept elsewhere on the disk. Perhaps the table was corrupted by the crash and you can recover it using one of those 'deleted file recovery' tools. Yes, I know FAT is old and ms-win probably uses a better file system by now, but perhaps there are still tools that can find the database file for you.

In addition to the already mentioned suggestions of a UPS, I recommend that "Project Backup" be enabled in Resolve. For users of Postgresql, a scheduled dump of the database is easy to do. Of course, your computer should have backups scheduled as well.

Evan,

Forgot to mention you should also check your User project save and load settings.

I recommend checking the box for Project backups and perform backups every 5 minutes.

If you did have the project backups activated you might be able to restore the project from the project backup location.

However as I mentioned earlier you should always export each individual project each day to an external folder for archiving the project throughout the progress of your work.

How many backups should you have well follow the advice credited to the US military "One is none, two is one and three is just right".

I just noticed in a follow-up message that you said it has the projects that were not created in the last four days. That is odd. It sounds like the file was reverted to a prior version.

Are the projects you worked on recently still there and just the changes missing? I was wondering if you have 'versioning' and have selected a different version?

Looking on my laptop (which differs from your system) I see a folder where the database should be. That is, from Resolve 17's "database list" screen, I can find the "local disk database" and it is a directory structure under which I see "Users/guest/Projects/". That folder contains a folder for each project I have on the laptop using the local disk (as opposed to on a remote system using Postgres). Each of those has a Project.db file. If you have folders for the missing projects, perhaps you can re-create the database with the missing projects.

[Peter Chamberlain]

Resolve can’t delete your projects folder.
An individual database could be corrupted if the power is removed mid write but u were rendering so that’s not even likely.
I’d try disk recovery tools.

I'd made a couple quick links on my menu bar as shortcuts to access certain projects.

Say what now?

Are the projects you worked on recently still there and just the changes missing? I was wondering if you have 'versioning' and have selected a different version?

No. There are no folders or anything like that. They are just gone. The older projects are all still there though.

Do you have File History? Sounds like your PC may have had some corruption and reverted back to to a recent working point?

Could possibly be why the DiskDB file has reverted back as well.