I went to delete unused assets from a project to try and shrink it. I did this to a copy, expecting problems. All good, it’s a copy right?
Now, not one version of any of my previous saved versions from the past 5 months will open without this message. Please help. ( I do have it backed up externally also, if somehow this deleted something from all the other version on my computer at once. ) But what do I put back and why has it gone from every saved and renamed version from the past?
The error message you are encountering suggests that some critical assets that are required by your project are missing. This could have happened because you deleted some assets that were still being referenced in your project, causing them to become unreferenced and ultimately breaking your project.
To resolve this issue, you can try restoring the deleted assets from your external backup. Make sure to place them back in the same location as they were before, as Unreal Engine uses a relative file path system to reference assets in your project.
If the external backup doesn’t resolve the issue, you may need to manually examine each saved version of your project to determine which assets are missing and then manually add them back into your project.
It is possible that the issue affects all the saved versions of your project because they were all derived from the same copy and thus reference the same assets. This is why it’s important to always keep backups of your projects and assets to avoid losing critical data.
I think I’ve killed my game. 
I have so many versions saved all over the place, and not one will open. I used to be able to open from my external drive where I keep a copy there also as an extra backup, but no different, this gives me the same message. It’s looking for something on my computer, and I have no idea what or where.
As for putting it back where it was, unfortunately I renamed it on the external drive and have no idea where it would have been on my computer hard drive. But it used to open fine directly from the external drive, even though it had a different name. They all have different names as I update and save.
Feeling a bit worried right about now.
I restored every deleted file in my recycle bin too, restarted the computer, but nope.
I found the place on my computer where the backup external copy was taken from. I’ve copied the entire file from my backup external drive and replaced the one one on my computer, but no.
So as for examining every file, I’m not a programmer or expert, I don’t know what I am looking for or where. I assumed that replacing the entire file from back-up would do this.
Hey @BaxAxter5!
Does this happen even for new blank projects? Have you tried verifying your installation of Unreal? If not, do you have access to the .uasset files themselves?
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Other project files are opening fine.
I’ve just found a three month earlier version of this game which is opening for some reason. I don’t know why it’s different. I was thinking I could paste the externally saved latest version over the top of a copy of this old one, add the new files to the old and see what happens. Will get back to you when tried.
Hey @BaxAxter5,
Your best bet is probably just that, making a copy for a backup then moving your available assets over. I would be wary of copying the entirety of the project however, so maybe just one folder at a time, as it may lead to you finding a broken file if there is one.
Good luck and let us know if you have any success!
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Thanks for offering your help. I’ll get back to you.
Check under your {Project}\Saved\Autosaves folder if the file exists. You could be lucky!
You can try to verify the engine through Epic Games, it can sometimes resolve issues such as yours. (If the file is an essential engine asset)
Also, you can try to take a random file and name it to s_ftest and place it in the correct location.
In the project folder you should have a .uproject folder. Try to open this in notepad and remove unnecessary components such as plugins, etc. Same goes for the Config Folder, try to do the same.
You can also try to remove the Intermediate, Saved, Build and DerivedDataCache folder. Perhaps you can even remove the Config folder, I am not 100% sure.
I believe it is obvious by now, but before you try anything I have written above, make a backup of the project.
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That’s the thing, I have maybe 60 backups, at various stages of construction. I only changed one of them, but now none of them open. So to me that says it’s not something in the individual saved copies, but something elsewhere on my computer it wants, outside of the various copies of the saved project.
Because even the externally saved copies won’t open, and obviously they didn’t get changed.
Verifying solved it. Thank you so much, I lost a few years from my life there, temporarily.
Thank you very much. Yes verifying solved it. I had previously verified the engine version, but didn’t understand properly what that was doing. I now know.
I feel very relieved.
Eyyy! Awesome! Best of luck!
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