Godot won't recognize project backup

:information_source: Attention Topic was automatically imported from the old Question2Answer platform.
:bust_in_silhouette: Asked By lincolnpepper

Recently my old hard drive broke and i lost my godot projects, except for my main one which i had a recent enough version of on github. But it seems there is no .godot file, and when i scan the folder above it in the project manager it does not find the project. I assume it’s something to do with the project being from before 3.1, but i thought godot could convert older projects to 3.1. My other fear is that i accidentally exported it as a game instead of a project when i last updated my repo (as evidenced by the Badaboom.pck file), but there is no exe and it looks like all the files are there as they would be in a godot project. Anyway, here is a google drive link with the whole project: badaboom – Google Drive
Is there anything i can do to restore my project?

I had a short look at the files. The assortment looks a bit weird but not totally discouraging.

The project file itself seems to be missing (or compiled into project.binary).
I am also a bit unsure why there’s a (small) .pck file inside your project folder.

Anyway many of the scene files seem to be present so you might be able to just create a new project in a new folder and then copy all project files (in their original folder structure) in it.

You will have to add some adjustments like defining the startup scenes/singletons and doing the export setup but mayby all project files are there.

There’s a decompiler here, but I don’t know if it can decompile a binary project.godot file:
GitHub - bruvzg/gdsdecomp: Godot reverse engineering tools

wombatstampede | 2019-12-03 14:12

I tried making a new project and copying all the files over. All the script files are .gdc instead of .gd, and just changing the name doesn’t work. I’m also apparently missing assets (but that’s fine cause i only had test assets). However, all scenes seem to still be there and scene trees are as i left them. I just can’t run them because it fails to get the scripts.
edit: apparently gdc files are compiled scripts, which means that i probably did export it as a game with some weird setting. Question now is, can i un-compile them somehow? Or still be able to use them without knowing whatever it compiles into

lincolnpepper | 2019-12-03 17:17

It is quite unusual to store the .gdc files on github as they’re (AFAIK) the compiled (binary/byte code) version of the scripts.

Anyway, I provided a link to a decompiler project in my previous comment. I have no idea how good it works but why not try that out. You might be able to recover the *.gd files from the *.gdc. If I understand the screenshot on the decompiler project page right then the comments will be missing but everything else seems to be ok.

wombatstampede | 2019-12-04 07:37

I know it’s a year later, but to let you know i did get it working and I’m making progress on that game’s development to this day! Thank you very much for saving my project.

lincolnpepper | 2020-11-06 18:38

Great to hear. Glad that i could be of help.

wombatstampede | 2020-11-09 07:20

Hey I was having a similar problem, can I ask how you solved it

Arun243 | 2022-01-15 19:09

In my situation, i had accidentally saved a compiled version of my game and not the project files. I was able to use the godot decompiler that wombat shared in the first comment to get my project files back.

lincolnpepper | 2022-01-15 23:08

I decompiled the .gdc files but Godot won’t recognize or open them

Arun243 | 2022-01-27 03:26

:bust_in_silhouette: Reply From: cochise123

I Found Something When You Change The Project.binary To A project.godot Then Godot Will Run The project.godot But Then As Soon On Launch It Crash Just Wanna Let you Know

And If You Want To change It Open The Project.binary In Notepad Then Save As project.godot Then Open it Using Godot