Windows 10: What Happened to my 500+ Hours of Projects in Paint 3D?? I am literally about to cry right now

Alright. I log on. I wanna finish my Terraria texture I have been making. I go to projects. GONE. EVERYTHING JUST GONE. I have the files for each project where it should be. Still dont exist. I restart my PC. Just nothing. Please Microsoft, for the love of God, help me. I've already been contemplating if life is even worth it, 500+ wasted hours of my life never able to be recovered will likely break the little hope to stay in this world. Why does the bad stuff always happen to me? You should have access to the machine, if you can, update it to have like coding or something to read the files on

:)

 

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: Can't open project

Hi,



Thank you for writing to Microsoft Community Forums.



We understand your concern as you are having difficulties with Paint 3D app on your PC. In order to get clarity and to assist you accordingly, please reply with the answers to the questions below:

• What is the Version and Build of Windows 10 installed? (Type
  winver in Windows search/Run command)
  
• What is the Version of Paint 3D installed on the PC?
  
• Did you try opening any other project or did you try to open the same project on a different device?
  
• Are you aware of any recent changes on the PC prior to this issue?

However, we would suggest you to perform step 1, 3 & 7 from this article:
Fix problems with apps from Microsoft Store



If the issue persists, then we would suggest you uninstall and reinstall Paint 3D app.

1. Close Paint 3D app. Press
   Windows + X key.
   
2. Select Windows PowerShell (Admin)
   from the list.
   
3. Copy and paste this command:
   Get-AppxPackage *Microsoft.MSPaint* | Remove-AppxPackage
   
4. Press Enter key and once the process completes, restart the PC.
   
5. After restart go to Microsoft Store and install
   Paint 3D.

If the issue persists, then we would suggest you to create a new administrator user account and check, refer this article to
create a local user or administrator account in Windows 10.



Let us know the results. We will certainly assist you further.



Aditya Roy

Microsoft Community – Moderator

 

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