Windows 10: Paint 3D deleted all my projects!

I opened Paint 3D today for a project, but when I went into the Open section, all my projects were gone. I saved every single one of them as Paint 3D projects so I could work on them because I needed them for schoolwork, but now the Open section is empty. How do I get my projects back?

:)

 

Paint 3d projects deleted

Paint 3d was not responding, so i did a reset. It said no files would be deleted, but they all were. I still have files i saved as glb files, but 2d projects are gone. A system restore did not help. Nor did a recover search for the Ms Paint app data bin
files. Are my projects gone forever?

 

Paint 3D Projects not Appearing

Hi,

The location that you've provided is the default file storage for Paint 3D. For us to provide the best resolution possible, we'll be needing additional information:

• Have you tried browsing on the default file storage and open the project files in Open menu? If yes, what happens when opening the project files?
• What do you mean about project.json does not point to any of the projects?

Meanwhile, we suggest that you run the Windows apps troubleshooter as an initial troubleshooting step and check if the project files are visible in the Open menu. You can also try browsing the project files in the Open menu after running the troubleshooter.
For your reference, check this article on how to run the troubleshooter for Windows apps.

We'll be waiting to your reply.

 

Paint 3D Projects not Appearing

Hey Gerard,

Thanks for getting back to me. Here's where I'm at:

We suggest that you run the Windows apps troubleshooter as an initial troubleshooting step and check if the project files are visible in the Open menu. You can also try browsing the project files in the Open menu after
running the troubleshooter.

I have ran the troubleshooter which completed a reset and opening of the windows store. It listed the issue of "Windows Store cache may be damaged" as being fixed. When I repoen and rerun the troubleshooter, it continues to find and "fix" the same issue
each time shown in Figure 1.





Figure 1: Windows Store Troubleshooter

I have tried to open the files through the open dialog in Paint 3D. The problem that I am seeing is that Paint 3D projects don't seem to have a master file that Paint 3D itself can recognize. In each project there is at most a thumbnail
and several .bin type files which cannot be opened from Paint 3D as in Figures 2 and 3





Figure 2: Data files of one project that cannot be found



Figure
3: The same project directory from Figure 2, but from the Open dialog.

Sorry for being vague. After the data loss, I created two new projects,
radda and radda2 to see if they would be identified in the open screen. They were, and this is the current projects.JSON file in the Paint 3D directory:

[{"Id":"{755cfc74-87ba-474b-9882-c221017bbbaa}","SourceId":"","Name":"Untitled","URI":"","DateTime":1.3162058946403906E+17,"Path":"Projects\\Untitled","SourceFilePath":"","Version":0.21,"IsRecovered":false,"IsPreviouslySaved":false},{"Id":"{d0ed6c56-dbe1-4136-88dc-9dd2496dd535}","SourceId":"","Name":"radda2","URI":"ms-appdata:///local/Projects/Untitled
(39)/Thumbnail.png","DateTime":1.316189481089825E+17,"Path":"Projects\\Untitled (39)","SourceFilePath":"","Version":0.21,"IsRecovered":false,"IsPreviouslySaved":true},{"Id":"{1c0fc511-8370-4c2e-a882-a776daa73b6d}","SourceId":"","Name":"radda","URI":"ms-appdata:///local/Projects/Untitled
(37)/Thumbnail.png","DateTime":1.3161894802891816E+17,"Path":"Projects\\Untitled (37)","SourceFilePath":"","Version":0.21,"IsRecovered":false,"IsPreviouslySaved":true}]

While it's kind of a mess in that form, you can see clear references to radda and radda2, while none of the other projects are referenced at all except for a project named "Untitled" which doesn't exist
in the open screen. This is what I meant by projects.JSON not pointing to the old projects.

Thank you for taking the time to sort through this. Let me know if there is any more information I can offer.

-Alex