My Vixen 3 profile is missing all of my elements and controllers

[Hockeyhunter1956]

Not sure what has happened to my Vixen 3 profile but I have managed to lose every element and controller. I'm running version 3.9.4. I only have one profile so this is very confusing to me. I do have backups of my Vixen 3 folders on 2 hard drives so at least that is okay. I looked in the error logs to see if it generated some type of error that would catch my eye, but I didn't see anything right off the bat. Does someone have a suggestion on how to proceed to recover all my elements and controllers?

Thanks,
Jim

[Hockeyhunter1956]

I can't seem to open that file however the size of the file would appear suspect as it only has 1KB of information in it. When I look at the same file in a Vixen 3 backup folder off one of the hard drives, it contains around 210,000 KB of information. IS it possible that my SystemConfig.xml got corrupted?

[RichieNorthcott]

If your display setup hasn't changed. copy the entire folder structure back from your backup. Normally your sequences will be in 'Sequences' folder and associated audio in 'Media'. You will want to keep those folders from your current setup if you have worked on content since your backup copies. I haven't seen the display corrupt in this way personally, but it's possible. It's a shame the logs don't show anything.

[BillW]

I had that happen to me. This may help. See this thread: http://doityourselfchristmas.com/for...ared&highlight
BillW

[Hockeyhunter1956]

Thanks to everyone who responded.

The problem was solved thanks to Mike Krebs post about the SystemConfig.xml file information. As a recap of my problem, I lost all my Elements, Controllers, and Preview information (and probably a few other things I didn't notice) yesterday evening. After comparing the size of my SystemConfig.xml ( 1KB) to my last backup SystemConfig.xml file (205 MB) I figured that somehow the file was damaged/corrupted. How or why that occurred is still a mystery to me. Reviewing all the Vixen logs did not supply me with information to a potential problem. To get things back, I copied a backup SystemConfig.xml from my last backup and got 99.99% of all my missing items back and running.

Thank goodness for backup files!

[jeffu231]

Just FYI. Vixen makes backup copies of those files as well in the same folder. There should be 3 recent copies of it. If you discover something like that happened, you could also try to use one of those backups since they would likely be more current than a backup taken less frequently. The sequences are the same way.

[Hockeyhunter1956]

Thanks Jeff. I realized that to late in the game while trying to understand and fix the original problem. The 3 backup copies all ended up the same size (1KB) as well so that was not going to work. If nothing else I have learned to go over to the SystemData folder right away and see if I can use one of the backup files before they get updated with bad/corrupt information.

I have gotten to the point over the years that we typically do backups of Vixen3 if we have done more than 3-4 hours worth of any work. That has saved my bacon a couple of times. So what I lost with the new elements and controllers I was adding was pretty easy to fix today.

Thanks for the information though.