The project description file (.project) for my project is missing

I am using Eclipse PDT 3.5 on Vista (32 bit). It works, though eclipse needs admin rights to execute. This annoys me, but I accept it.

But: every now and then (I am not sure, it may even be everytime I want to open a project), I get the error message "The project description file (.project) for my project is missing.".

It is NOT missing, it is in the main folder of the project. It has no special flags set (it is not hidden, nor system file, nor write-protected).

This is for ALL projects I have in my list. The only solution I have found so far is to delete the project from eclipse an re-add it. This is somewhat annoying.

What can I do?

EDIT: The workspaces are on a server volume. Can this be the problem? I used Eclipse 3.3 before, and there it was no problem with the server paths. And the server volume is mapped to a drive letter.

I've found this solution by googling. I have just had this problem and it solved it.

My mistake was to put a project in other location out of the workspace, and share this workspace between several computers, where the paths difer. I learned that, when a project is out of workspace, its location is saved in workspace/.metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.core.resources/.projects/PROJECTNAME/.location

Deleting .location and reimporting the project into workspace solved the issue. Hope this helps.

I had the same problem and in my case .project file was also present in the project directory and had correct permissions.

This problem happened to me after I closed and reopened multiple projects quickly one after another and Eclipse tried to rebuild them at the same time.

In my case Eclipse lost .location file in the workspace directory for 2 out of 5 projects: <workspace>/.metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.core.resources/.projects/<project name>/.location

I've followed instructions on How to get project list if delete .metadata accidentally and imported the project in the workspace manually via File :: Import :: Other :: General :: Existing Projects. After that .location file was created again and Eclipse stopped complaining.

I had the same problem, and I haven't gotten that error since I close the project before I close myEclipse and don't tidy up the default location.

My project source and compiled files are outside the default workspace but there are stubb folders created by default by myEclipse in the default workspace. When I setup the project, there are two .project files - one in the default workspace that points to the working dir, and one .project in my chosen directory.