Shotcut "failed to open .mlt" and my file is appearing as "zero bytes"

2

If you didn’t make a backup try this:

If I’m working on a long project I often save my project to a new MLT file every hour or so. That way if I really screw up I only lose an hour’s work at most. I also backup all the files that have changed on my system (not just Shotcut) each night to an external drive using a backup utility called SyncBakFree: