Eclipse loses your stuff, but that's okay

The last time that I mentioned Eclipse I hadn't yet come across any major issues, but I recently came across an error that makes it appear as though you have lost all of the work that you have ever done in Eclipse. It forgets where it has put all of your things, and you need to import all of your projects back into Eclipse. Despite repeatedly stressing 'all' back there this isn't a huge drama, but if you don't know that it is easily fixed there will be all of the swearing.

The error will say:

The file does not exist        org.eclipse.core.filebuffers

That is okay though, because we can fix it in two easy steps that are actually made up of a couple of steps each, but you could skip the whole first step and it's sub-steps, but you should read it to find it if you need to first.

1. Workspaces 

You will need to know where your workspace is, so if you are certain that you know, go to step 2. Otherwise follow these directions.

Windows -> Preferences

Once the preferences pane is open, expand 'General', then 'Startup and Shutdown' in the menu on the left. Click on workspaces. This should show you a list of your workspaces. Most people should only be using a couple. If there is more than one, and you aren't sure which one you want, find them in explorer.

2. Import

File -> Import

Once the import pane turns up expand 'General' and select 'Existing Projects into Workspace', and click 'Next'.

Browse to your original workspace folder (which we looked up in step 1), because the files haven't actually moved. Once you have done this a list of your projects will appear in the window. Make sure the ones you want are ticked. If they are grayed out, they should already be viewable by Eclipse. If you use nested projects, tick that box too. You won't need to tick 'Copy projects into workspace', because they are already there.

I was pretty frustrated by this, and I'm not entirely sure what brings it on, but it hasn't really put me off Eclipse. It would be nice if it just didn't do this, but it does and it is still a fantastic IDE even with this special feature. While it appears to be a relatively major issue, the fact that is so quickly and easily fixed renders it a nuisance at worst. I came across another incredibly tedious fix for this, but importing is quicker and easier.