Projects Disappear After Updating Resolve

So this happened to me this week. I started a project in Resolve 15, got to a good stopping point, was waiting on client reviews before I could move forward, and figured I’d update to Resolve 16 while I wait on feedback. My bad. As soon as I opened up the new version 16, all my projects disappeared after updating Resolve.

Windows 10

After doing some serious digging and scouring every online resource I could find, I finally figured it out. In short, Resolve references your project database in a crazy long file path buried under AppData. This is your ACTIVE database directory. Resolve is always referencing this file path for all your projects. In my case, this directory was empty, resulting in my blank projects panel when I launched Resolve. The full file path is:

C:\Users\[your username]\AppData\Roaming\Blackmagic Design\ DaVinci Resolve\Support\Resolve Disk Database\Resolve Projects\

The Fix

To fix this, I found my projects in a similar, but different file path under ProgramData. Inside the following filepath, I found all my projects! Yay! They exist!

C:\ProgramData\Blackmagic Design\DaVinci Resolve\Support\Resolve Disk Database\Resolve Projects\

So all I did was copy everything inside the last folder \Resolve Projects\ and pasted inside my empty \AppData\ directory. That fixed it!

AppData = Active database directory

ProgramData = Where I found all my old projects

Hope that helps!