Aaargh! Help with lost .xpj's?

Guys I must have made a massive schoolboy error somewhere down the line...in the interests of trying to do the right thing (housekeeping) I removed my SD card from my One and put it in my PC so I could 'clean up' some unwanted files as File Explorer is far easier to work with than the file system on the MPC. Famous last words.

As a result I seem to have lost the last 4 .xpj files I have been working on. As soon as I realised my heart sank to my feet as I have put so many hours into the projects. I have checked every other folder just in case I moved them by mistake and even checked around any trash folders but as we know, anything deleted directly from an SD card doesn't go into the PC trash. They are gone. I am totally gutted, frustrated and massively angry with myself.

My question is, I do still have the project data files. Is there anything I can do with them to help get me at least part way back on track? Could I just open an empty project on the MPC and rename>save as the original and hope any pray it hooks up with the related project data file? I ask because I'm not entirely sure what the .xpj does. I could of course just had a go at doing this but to be quite frank I didn't want to fcuk it up any more than I have done already without asking someone.

Yours, Devastated

If you are sure that you can't recover the XPJ then it's still unlikely to be a huge issue. An XPJ basically serves two purposes; a) load up all the resources found in the projectData folder and b) configure project-wide settings (which may or may not even exist)

So you could just drag that projectData folder into the MPC Software and it should just load up all your samples, program, sequences and songs.

The other stuff will have to be recreated, this could include things like master, returns and sub mix FX and mix settings, some Qlink configs (e.g. pad scenes) and various other stuff.

But you'll definitely be able to recover all programs, seqs, samples and all program FX etc.

BTW, on an MPC an XPJ file is just a plain text file which you could open in Notepad, it's 'human readable' (xml), so you could take a peak at one of your other XPJ files and you'll see that ultimately it\s not really much more than a set of clear instructions (load these samples, then these program, then these sequences etc).

Hi Tutor,

Thank you so much for your reply, really appreciated and gives me a glimmer of hope! Just one thing re your instructions, when you say 'load up the project folder' I am not sure what you mean - the project data file and everything it used hasn't changed locations, it's still there where it originally was on the SD card, so how do I 'load it up'
without the xpj to do it from? As you are probably aware, the xpj icon I used to use is greyed out on the MPC because it can't find the xpj.

Re the possible loss of sub mix/q link setting/FX etc I would be totally happy with that, not a big problem, but if I can get the main structure back that would be awesome!

btw I did open up another .xpj file just to have a look and I did see it's all readable, but there was 600 lines of text so it looked pretty important!

If you are in the MPC Software, create a new blank project and literally just drag the projectData folder into the MPC Software and everything will be loaded.

If you are in standalone, you might be able to single tap the projectData folder, hold down shift in the browser and select LOAD ALL. Otherwise enter the projectData folder and start loading things manually, e.g. all the XPM files (that will take care of all progs, samples and audio tracks, then the 'all seqs' file (this will load all sequences and songs).

Have you tried recovery software? If you've used the card then that chance has gone. If you ever lose files, they can be recovered if done straight away. But once you start writing to the disk, you risk overwriting the lost data as the os thinks it's free space.

I've never used the PC software, only ever standalone. I'll try what you say though for the standalone method, nothing to lose!

@SL23 - I've definitely used the SD card since, in fact most of my recent work has been on other projects, I prob work on 8 or so at any given time, picking whichever I feel like messing with depending on my mood that day. It's just bloody annoying that the xpj's I have lost were my best out of all of them!

Shame you used the card afterwards.
I learnt a long time ago to keep backups, but shit happens. I would recommend you look at piriforms free recuva program. Least that way should you lose anything you have a way of getting it back.

Just an update for this, mainly to express my utmost thanks!

Tutor you were right, I fired up the MPC, selected 'empty pattern' just to get me off the home screen, went into the browser, found one of my 'project data' files (after selecting the check box to 'show hidden data files'), highlighted it with one press, then held shift and saw the 'load all' option come up. Selected that and boom! All the project data loaded up, sequences constructed, samples and plugins loaded etc etc.

There was some real weird stuff going on - tempo changes and other stuff you suggested to expect - some program/plugin adjustments and other bits and pieces had gone a bit skew but the VAST bulk of work was there so I am super happy. I can spend some time just adjusting all the needed stuff back again.

I then just re-saved everything as a new project (save project as) and I'm back!

For sure, I would never have been able to create all this work from scratch, nor would I have worked out what you suggested to do.

You Sir are a hero. I'm so happy I think I'm going to wander over to your site and buy something!

sl23 wrote:Shame you used the card afterwards.
I learnt a long time ago to keep backups, but shit happens.

Yep I do have a backup SD which I do sometimes back up to but not nearly enough! The last time I did it was months ago, mental note to sort myself out and do it at least weekly! Timely reminder, thanks

You can also just pop the SD into your PC & have a folder on the desktop called MPC-Backup & anything new. Put SD back in your MPC until next time.

B-Wise wrote:You can also just pop the SD into your PC & have a folder on the desktop called MPC-Backup & anything new.

I wouldn‘t suggest storing that kind of data on your desktop if you want your machine to run smoothly. Preferrably create a shortcut there. and store it somewhere else.

I‘d even suggest using cloud storage for that, if you want to make sure it transitions to a new machine without hustle.

If you have computer backup software this can normally be configured to auto-backup a removable drive whenever it is connected. Back it up to a cloud folder (dropbox, gdrive etc) and you get extra redundancy.

But auto cloud backup of standalone disks via wifi would make a lot of sense, I can't imagine it's too difficult to implement as they are already sending all sorts of data back and forth over the internet. Most cloud providers have an API which akai would hook into.

83dude wrote:

B-Wise wrote:You can also just pop the SD into your PC & have a folder on the desktop called MPC-Backup & anything new.

I wouldn‘t suggest storing that kind of data on your desktop if you want your machine to run smoothly. Preferrably create a shortcut there. and store it somewhere else.

I‘d even suggest using cloud storage for that, if you want to make sure it transitions to a new machine without hustle.

^...*SAVE anything new.

I'm talking about the MPC files on the SD just to have a basic back-up. I would still have other/better methods, but this is way better than no back-up & would've saved the OP from making this post. Maybe we're talking about different things.