Eclipse Hell . . . Failed to read the project description file (.project)

Question

I think Eclipse is trying to make me miserable. A couple of hours ago, my project was working and compiling well. Suddenly that all changed. Eclipse somehow wipes out all changes I have made to my files(activity, manifest etc.) I make sure to save often but when I go to run the project, I get the error that I have a build error. I checked and there was none, so I go to close Eclipse, so I can reopen and see if the errors will go away. Instead what happens is Eclipse wipes clean all my files and I end up with a project on disk with lots of blank code files. I try to run anyway, and I get the error message below.

Failed to read the project description file (.project) for 'com.example.android.nfc.simulator.FakeTagsActivity.FakeTagsActivity'. The file has been changed on disk, and it now contains invalid information. The project will not function properly until the description file is restored to a valid state.

Anyone have an idea what in the world this is about and how I can rectify this?

Answer 1

I would recommend to wipe out all the eclipse related configuration files(make sure you take the backup if you have manually made some changes in those) and import the project again, by following

File -> Import... -> Existing Project into Workspace

Make sure you take the backup of whole project before doing this.

Answer 2

When Eclipse gets stuck in some obscure status, I usually find useful to recreate the .metadata folder in workspace directory. It is a drastic solution, but it usually works for me. After that you can reimport all your projects.