Xcode Project error: xcodeproj cannot be opened because it is missing its project.pbxproj file

Question

I have been scratching my hair to solve this one. Here is what happened.

I recently formatted my MAC and I synced all files back to it from my Dropbox account.

For some reason I am getting this error each time I try to open any of my Xcode projects:

xcodeproj cannot be opened because it is missing its project.pbxproj file.

Now, I've found several threads on stack overflow that suggest different solutions and one common is to pewit the .xcodeproj/project.pbxproj file but when checking the content of my Xcode project I can't find such a file.

I don't know what I can do anymore as my Xcode skills are highly limited and I would really be thankful if someone could put me in the right direction.

Thanks!

Answer 1

The Xcode project file is a package (so it's really a folder). The project.pbxproj is stored inside the package. Go to Finder, right-click on your project file, select Show Package Contents. The project.pbxproj should be present. If not, go back and do the same thing with your copy in Dropbox.

FYI, I can round trip a project file to and from Dropbox and it doesn't get corrupted.