Check in the Navigation pane on the left side, if all projects are shown and no filter is active.

If there is no filter, make sure you are logged in Windows as the same user as yesterday. Check the Studio folder also for other users of your PC.

Make sure, all external drives and/or USB devices are connected.

To avoid such hassle in the future, store your projects in a folder of YOUR choice and do not let Studio do it for you. Obviously you need to learn something about files and folder management in Windows. Using the so called default folder which is situated in your Documents folder within the libraries is a very bad idea. This folder is located on the drive C: together with Windows and programs. It is much better to create own folder and file structure.

Hi Jerzy,

thanks a lot for your reply and your tips but it hasn't help much.

Navigation panel is set at "Show all projects"

I am logged as the same user as everyday.

Have no external drives/USB devices.

I don't use a default folder to store projects. I always indicate the path and they are automatically store in the cloud as well. When recovering the project from my security copy and trying to open it in Trados, Trados informed "You cannot open this project on Trados. You only are allowed to open single documents or packages" (translated from the German version of Trados).... PLEASE, I NEED A REAL SOLUTION NOW.

Kind regards

Isabel

Isabel M Martos Maldonado 

You are mistaken. Jerzy is not treating you as if you wouldn't know how to manage files or saying that there can not be a problem with Studio that he doesn't know about. That is not what he meant in either case. Let me tell you a story and then I'll leave you in peace...

When I was a young mother, I helped run a playgroup for pre-school children. I had a tireless perfectly bilingual German friend who also helped and did way more useful stuff than I did. 

Because my friend had grown up with German parents, she spoke English in what appeared to be an overly-emphatic way. This was because she used German intonation rather than English and if an English person had used that tone of voice, they would have been being much more forceful than she actually was.

Many of the mothers coming to the group would be upset by her saying something that she meant to be kind. They felt she was being patronising, insulting or rude for example. This was a real shame because she did not mean to sound negative at all. She was not patronising, insulting or rude; she was an angel. They just didn't understand her tone of voice. I was too shy back then to do anything about it.

I have seen several instances of this on the SDL Community. I have once or twice tried to help people understand that it's happening so that they can stand back, just look at the facts and get the help they need without any upset . Life has enough reasons to be cross without creating new ones.

I suggest you run a Windows Repair on Studio after first making sure it and MultiTerm are up to date and the right version for each other. I won't insult you by giving you precise instructions how to do this...

If that doesn't work, reinstall Studio and if that doesn't work you can get direct help here

All the best,

Ali 

Edited...

Isabel M Martos Maldonado

I wonder if you are running any sort of back up, or security software, that might have caused this?  It's really strange that you are seeing all these duplicate files and even stranger that you seem to have lost projects.

Like Jerzy, and Alison, I don't think Studio has caused this.  But if course there is a first time for everything should we get to the bottom of this.  But I would not exclude the problems coming from somewhere else.

I have seen similar behavior with files I keep in my OneDrive.

When I access such a file from my laptop and do not notice I am offline, the file can get duplicated when I get online again while my PC at home is on and the file kept there has not been changed. As OneDrive cannot tell now which file shall be kept (the one from laptop, modified offline, of the unmodified file from the PC) and creates a duplicate. So this could be a case here, also giving a possible explanation for disappearing files due to errors in synchronization. But as usual the user moans instead providing a bit more of information, giving as a small chance to reproduce her problem.

As you, Paul, I have never seen files disappearing from a PC without a user interaction. I use PCs since the very beginning of my translator career 30 years ago. And if files disappeared, it was me who deleted them. Either on purpose but then regretted that or accidentally. Neither Word, the old Trados, Studio or any other software did delete anything on its own. Yes, some files got overwritten by software, but if was me who allowed that.

Hi Paul,

In fact, HubiC is making a constant synchronisation in the cloud of every file I work on. Do you mean it could be the reason? It is the first time files disappear from a project folder (although I have been working with HubiC for a couple of years now).

I have just opened the folder again and the file was there again but have a look at this:

They disappeared and have reappeared again on their own. I am completely sure I have not erased them.

The duplication of files is a problem I have experienced for a long time now, but exclusively with TMs and it also happened this time:

What do you suggest?

Well, I am not Paul, but I do not care.

The problem is most certainly entirely caused by your cloud solution.

Having Studio files synchronized with the cloud permanently is a very bad idea. I understand the underlying purpose of having a kind of backup, but cloud isn't really a backup. This may be convenient if your often working out of office, but even then having this done in real time is not good. Much better would be keeping the files completely locally without a synchronization with the cloud and having also a more sophisticated local backup solution, Then, using a simple and efficient synchronization software on your PC you could have the files synchronized on a scheduled basis. For example you can setup a synchronization to run every time you start your PC. If you then set up your backup to run at the end of the day, you would even have a kind of versioning of your files.

Now, honestly: why did you NOT provide this information with your very first posting? It is so important, but instead telling us such things, you accuse me not to treat you properly. Pardon my French, but you did treat me in at least the same way. Not giving us here such important piece of information shows quite well your attitude. And sorry, this is NOT the way one should ask for help, forcing the people willing to help to drag the information piece by piece literally from your nose!

Isabel M Martos Maldonado said:

In fact, HubiC is making a constant synchronisation in the cloud of every file I work on.

Yes, I think this is the likely cause of your problems.  I see this sometimes with OneDrive as I use it with my teams for sharing some files... it's extremely frustrating when we suddenly see duplicate files or lost files.

A quick google of this problem in the HubiC forums returns a lot of results.  The main problems are caused by poor connectivity (dropping in and out) and slow connectivity (still backing up larger files as you are already making new changes in the current ones).

I would recommend not working in the cloud in this way, but rather work locally and back up to the cloud (if you like this facility) at the ed of the day, or when you complete your work.

This piece of information should have been provided in the very first posting.

The solution is simple: you work locally with Studio and use better means of backup as cloud. Even for going on the road you can get the desktop and laptop synchronized in minutes, when needed, without using the cloud. This is what I do always when I leave my home. There are a lot of ways to work with Studio, but using cloud is the last I would recommend.. And this case proves again, that Studio does NOT delete files, even if some users would wish to blame Studio for this.

Hi Paul,

I had really no idea the synchronisation could be the problem but it makes sense. I´ll definitely change it. Thank you very much for your help!

Dear Jerzy,

I have not given you this piece of info, obviously, because I had no clue it could be a reason.

Otherwise, you do know it can interfere and you could have asked for it instead of asking whether the navigation panel is set to show all projects or if I sent the files to the bin... I felt myself insulted and felt I was wasting time I really needed to solve the problem. I hope you can understand it. I give you my apologies. 

Thanks a lot for your last suggestion.

If you allow me to jump in here, I have a suggestion related to keeping copies of your working folders and files. I understand we all want to keep (up-to-date) copies of our precious digital assets, but sometimes less is more. In between huge backups, I use a very nice Windows built-in feature (since Windows 7, I guess). It's called Robocopy docs.microsoft.com/.../robocopy and it makes copies on the fly of folders, subfolders, files, etc. The beauty of it is that it will take care of every new item, whether you deleted it or copied it to another locations (within a given folder, of course), or rename it, etc. It does all of this seamlessly with a parameter called /mir (for mirror copy). 

For instance, if you have a directory called "D:\SDL TMs" and you want to make a mirror copy, i.e. identical copy, to an external drive N: you create and run a batch file (.bat) with a line that reads: 

robocopy "D:\SDL TMs" "N:\SDL TMs" /mir

Robocopy will take care of everything. And you can run this batch file every now and then (every half an hour or so). Of course you can include several lines (i.e. commands) within a batch file to take care of your different folders and locations.

On the other hand, I use Acronis (an excellent German software, recommended) to make general backups of my whole system plus lots of security and a cloud service. Nothing compares.

I hope you find this information useful.

If you allow me to jump in here, I have a suggestion related to keeping copies of your working folders and files. I understand we all want to keep (up-to-date) copies of our precious digital assets, but sometimes less is more. In between huge backups, I use a very nice Windows built-in feature (since Windows 7, I guess). It's called Robocopy docs.microsoft.com/.../robocopy and it makes copies on the fly of folders, subfolders, files, etc. The beauty of it is that it will take care of every new item, whether you deleted it or copied it to another locations (within a given folder, of course), or rename it, etc. It does all of this seamlessly with a parameter called /mir (for mirror copy). 

For instance, if you have a directory called "D:\SDL TMs" and you want to make a mirror copy, i.e. identical copy, to an external drive N: you create and run a batch file (.bat) with a line that reads: 

robocopy "D:\SDL TMs" "N:\SDL TMs" /mir

Robocopy will take care of everything. And you can run this batch file every now and then (every half an hour or so). Of course you can include several lines (i.e. commands) within a batch file to take care of your different folders and locations.

On the other hand, I use Acronis (an excellent German software, recommended) to make general backups of my whole system plus lots of security and a cloud service. Nothing compares.

I hope you find this information useful.

Extremely useful, Ozzie! And I am sure it can help many other translators too. Thanks a lot for your reply and suggestions.

In fact I suggested something similar, but using a third-party synchronization software. The software I use is Allway Sync https://allwaysync.com/

It is cheap and works like a charm. The huge advantage here is, that you can schedule the tasks. So for example I let my e-mail files (Outlook pst) to be backed up on an external drive (a NAS in my case) every time when the PC starts. My TMs/TBs, which I keep locally on my HDD for speed, are synchronized to NAS every day at 20:00 (8 pm). You can schedule a task to run, when your external HDD is connected. This makes this little program so powerful.

To have a backup, I invested in NAS - in the meantime we have 4 pieces of NAS running here. The NAS1 (the main one) keeps ALL data (I have no working data internally in my PC, only TMs/TBs for speed). NAS2 is a backup NAS, while NAS1 runs a real-time synchronization of all working data to NAS2. Then NAS2 runs a backup to NAS3 during the night at 2 am. NAS3 backups to NAS4 at 0 am. This way I can go back 48 hours, if needed. It would also be possible to have backup versioning, which would mean having even better possibility to restore, but as it was never necessary I stick to this extremely simple solution.

Should you be interested in more details, contact me off forum or attend a BDÜ seminar in Ludwigshafen/Germany on November 13th, 2020. There may also be a similar short workshop at the Translate Cluj conference in March 2020.